und by the village, that some favorite gossips might stop and ask,
"What news of his brave young honor?"

I strive to engage my uncle in my projects for the repair of the ruins,
for the culture of those wide bogs and moorlands why is it that he turns
away and looks down embarrassed? Ah! I guess,--his true heir now is
restored to him. He cannot consent that I should invest this dross, for
which (the Great Book once published) I have no other use, in the house
and the lands that will pass to his son. Neither would he suffer me
so to invest even his son's fortune, the bulk of which I still hold in
trust for that son. True, in his career my cousin may require to have
his money always forthcoming. But I, who have no career,--pooh! these
scruples will rob me of half the pleasure my years of toil were to
purchase. I must contrive it somehow or other: what if he would let me
house and moorland on a long improving lease? Then, for the rest, there
is a pretty little property to be sold close by, on which I can retire,
when my cousin, as heir of the family, comes, perhaps with a wife, to
reside at the Tower. I must consider of all this, and talk it over with
Bolt, when my mind is at leisure from happiness to turn to such matters;
meanwhile I fall back on my favorite proverb,--"Where there's a will
there's a way."

What smiles and tears, and laughter and careless prattle with my mother,
and roundabout questions from her to know if I had never lost my heart
in the Bush; and evasive answers from me, to punish her for not letting
out that Blanche was so charming. "I fancied Blanche had grown the image
of her father, who has a fine martial head certainly, but not seen to
advantage in petticoats! How could you be so silent with a theme so
attractive?"

"Blanche made me promise."

Why, I wonder. Therewith I fell musing.

What quiet, delicious hours are spent with my father in his study, or
by the pond, where he still feeds the carps, that have grown into
Cyprinidian leviathans. The duck, alas! has departed this life,--the
only victim that the Grim King has carried off; so I mourn, but am
resigned to that lenient composition of the great tribute to Nature. I
am sorry to say the Great Book has advanced but slowly,--by no means yet
fit for publication; for it is resolved that it shall not come out as
first proposed, a part at a time, but, totus, teres, atque rotundus.
The matter has spread beyond its original compass; no less than five