huffled him into places with the raw
heiress, but with the child's mother; of whom he spoke to Algernon as of
one too strongly breathing of matrimony to appease the cravings of an
eclectic mind.

"Make the path clear for me, then," said Algernon, "if you don't like the
girl. Pitch her tales about me. Say, I've got a lot in me, though I don't
let it out. The game's up between you and Peggy Lovell, that's clear. She
don't forgive you, my boy."

"Ass!" muttered Edward, seeing by the light of his perception, that he
was too thoroughly forgiven.

A principal charm of the life at Fairly to him was that there was no one
complaining. No one looked reproach at him. If a lady was pale and
reserved, she did not seem to accuse him, and to require coaxing. All
faces here were as light as the flying moment, and did not carry the
shadowy weariness of years, like that burdensome fair face in the London
lodging-house, to which the Fates had terribly attached themselves. So,
he was gay. He closed, as it were, a black volume, and opened a new and a
bright one. Young men easily fancy that they may do this, and that when
the black volume is shut the tide is stopped. Saying, "I was a fool,"
they believe they have put an end to the foolishness. What father teaches
them that a human act once set in motion flows on for ever to the great
account? Our deathlessness is in what we do, not in what we are.
Comfortable Youth thinks otherwise.

The days at a well-ordered country-house, where a divining lady rules,
speed to the measure of a waltz, in harmonious circles, dropping like
crystals into the gulfs of Time, and appearing to write nothing in his
book. Not a single hinge of existence is heard to creak. There is no
after-dinner bill. You are waited on, without being elbowed by the
humanity of your attendants. It is a civilized Arcadia. Only, do not
desire, that you may not envy. Accept humbly what rights of citizenship
are accorded to you upon entering. Discard the passions when you cross
the threshold. To breathe and to swallow merely, are the duties which
should prescribe your conduct; or, such is the swollen condition of the
animal in this enchanted region, that the spirit of man becomes
dangerously beset.

Edward breathed and swallowed, and never went beyond the prescription,
save by talking. No other junior could enter the library, without
encountering the scorn of his elders; so he enjoyed the privilege of
hearing all the scandal, and