erence must wear off. I shall mark his
inclinations now, and he shall be what he inclines to. Occupation will
be his prime safety. His cousin Austin's plan of life appears most
to his taste, and he can serve the people that way as well as in
Parliament, should he have no stronger ambition. The clear duty of a man
of any wealth is to serve the people as he best can. He shall go among
Austin's set, if he wishes it, though personally I find no pleasure in
rash imaginations, and undigested schemes built upon the mere instinct
of principles."

"Look at him now," said the lady. "He seems to care for nothing; not
even for the beauty of the day."

"Or Adrian's jokes," added the baronet.

Adrian could be seen to be trying zealously to torment a laugh, or a
confession of irritation, out of his hearers, stretching out his chin to
one, and to the other, with audible asides. Richard he treated as a
new instrument of destruction about to be let loose on the slumbering
metropolis; Hippias as one in an interesting condition; and he got so
much fun out of the notion of these two journeying together, and the
mishaps that might occur to them, that he esteemed it almost a personal
insult for his hearers not to laugh. The wise youth's dull life at
Raynham had afflicted him with many peculiarities of the professional
joker.

"Oh! the Spring! the Spring!" he cried, as in scorn of his sallies they
exchanged their unmeaning remarks on the sweet weather across him. "You
seem both to be uncommonly excited by the operations of turtles, rooks,
and daws. Why can't you let them alone?"

'Wind bloweth,
Cock croweth,
Doodle-doo;
Hippy verteth,
Ricky sterteth,
Sing Cuckoo!'

There's an old native pastoral!--Why don't you write a Spring sonnet,
Ricky? The asparagus-beds are full of promise, I hear, and eke the
strawberry. Berries I fancy your Pegasus has a taste for. What kind of
berry was that I saw some verses of yours about once?--amatory verses
to some kind of berry--yewberry, blueberry, glueberry! Pretty verses,
decidedly warm. Lips, eyes, bosom, legs--legs? I don't think you gave
her any legs. No legs and no nose. That appears to be the poetic taste
of the day. It shall be admitted that you create the very beauties for a
chaste people.

'O might I lie where leans her lute!'

and offend no moral community. That's not a bad image of yours, my dear
boy:

'Her