NEL MORLEY.--"With all my heart. You have plans, then?--a good sign.
Animals in hibernation form none."

DARRELL (putting aside the lights on the table, so as to leave, his face
in shade, and looking towards the floor as he speaks).--"For the last
five years I have struggled hard to renew interest in mankind, reconnect
myself with common life and its healthful objects. Between Fawley
and London I desired to form a magnetic medium. I took rather a vast
one,--nearly all the rest of the known world. I have visited both
Americas, either end. All Asia have I ransacked, and pierced as far
into Africa as traveller ever went in search of Timbuctoo. But I have
sojourned also, at long intervals, at least they seemed long to me,--in
the gay capitals of Europe (Paris excepted); mixed, too, with the
gayest; hired palaces, filled them with guests; feasted and heard music.
'Guy Darrell,' said I, 'shake off the rust of years: thou hadst no youth
while young,--be young now. A holiday may restore thee to wholesome
work, as a holiday restores the wearied school-boy.'"

COLONEL MORLEY.--"I comprehend; the experiment succeeded?"

DARRELL.--"I don't know: not yet; but it may. I am here, and I intend
to stay. I would not go to a hotel for a single day, lest my resolution
should fail me. I have thrown myself into this castle of care without
even a garrison. I hope to hold it. Help me to man it. In a word, and
without metaphor, I am here with the design of re-entering London life."

COLONEL MORLEY.--"I am so glad. Hearty congratulations! How rejoiced
all the Viponts will be! Another 'CRISIS' is at hand. You have seen the
newspapers regularly, of course: the state of the country interests you.
You say that you come from Ouzelford, the town you once represented. I
guess you will re-enter Parliament; you have but to say the word."

DARRELL.--"Parliament! No. I received, while abroad, so earnest a
request from my old constituents to lay the foundation-stone of a new
Town-Hall, in which they are much interested; and my obligations to them
have been so great that I could not refuse. I wrote to fix the day as
soon as I had resolved to return to England, making a condition that I
should be spared the infliction of a public dinner, and landed just in
time to keep my appointment; reached Ouzelford early this morning, went
through the ceremony, made a short speech, came on at once to London,
not venturing to diverge to Fawley (which is not very far fro