e young folks are
married;--not a stone stand on stone! The ploughshare shall pass over
their sites! And this task I order you to see done. I have not strength.
You will then hasten to join me at Sorrento, that corner of earth on
which Horace wished to breathe his last sigh.

'Ille to mecum locus et beatae
Postulant arces--ibi--tu '"

"Don't, sir, don't. Horace again! It is too much." Fairthorn was
choking; but as if the idea presented to him was really too monstrous
for belief, he clutched at Darrell with so uncertain and vehement a hand
that he almost caught him by the throat, and sobbed out, "You must be
joking."

"Seriously and solemnly, Richara Fairthorn," said Darrell, gently
disentangling the fingers that threatened him with strangulation,
"seriously and solemnly I have uttered to you my deliberate purpose. I
implore you, in the name of our life-long friendship, to face this pain
as I do--resolutely, cheerfully. I implore you to execute to the letter
the instructions I shall leave with you on quitting England, which I
shall do the day Lionel is married; and then, dear old friend, calm
days, clear consciences:--In climes where whole races have passed
away--proud cities themselves sunk in graves--where our petty grief for
a squirearch's lost house we shall both grow ashamed to indulge--there
we will moralise, rail against vain dreams and idle pride, cultivate
vines and orange trees, with Horace--nay, nay, Dick--with the FLUTE!"

CHAPTER V.

MORE BOUNTEOUS RUN RIVERS WHEN THE ICE THAT LOCKED THEIR FLOW MELTS
INTO THEIR WATERS. AND WHEN FINE NATURES RELENT, THEIR KINDNESS Is
SWELLED BY THE THAW.

Darrell escaped into the house; Fairthorn sunk upon the ground, and
resigned himself for some minutes to unmanly lamentations. Suddenly he
started up; a thought came into his brain--a hope into his breast. He
made a caper--launched himself into a precipitate zig-zag--gained the
hall-door-plunged into his own mysterious hiding-place--and in less than
an hour re-emerged, a letter in his hand, with which he had just time
to catch the postman, as that functionary was striding off from the back
yard with the official bag.

This exploit performed, Fairthorn shambled into his chair at the
dinner-table, as George Morley concluded the grace which preceded the
meal that in Fairthorn's estimation usually made the grand event of the
passing day. But the poor man's appetite was gone. As Sophy d