org, and seemed anxious to discuss some points with one
who professes to be his follower. To say truth, I did not expect to find
him either so well read or so deeply interested in the subject.'

'Was he angry when it was proposed that he should vacate the guardianship?'

'Not at all. Contrariwise, he said he had at first been so minded himself.
His years, his habits, and something of the unfitness of the situation, the
remoteness of Bartram-Haugh from good teachers, and all that, had struck
him, and nearly determined him against accepting the office. But then came
the views which I stated in my letter, and they governed him; and nothing
could shake them, he said, or induce him to re-open the question in his own
mind.'

All the time Doctor Bryerly was relating his conference with the head of
the family at Bartram-Haugh my cousin commented on the narrative with a
variety of little 'pishes' and sneers, which I thought showed more of
vexation than contempt.

I was glad to hear all that Doctor Bryerly related. It gave me a kind
of confidence; and I experienced a momentary reaction. After all, could
Bartram-Haugh be more lonely than I had found Knowl? Was I not sure of the
society of my Cousin Millicent, who was about my own age? Was it not quite
possible that my sojourn in Derbyshire might turn out a happy though very
quiet remembrance through all my after-life? Why should it not? What time
or place would be happy if we gave ourselves over to dismal imaginations?

So the summons reached me from Uncle Silas. The hours at Knowl were
numbered.

The evening before I departed I visited the full-length portrait of Uncle
Silas, and studied it for the last time carefully, with deep interest, for
many minutes; but with results vaguer than ever.

With a brother so generous and so wealthy, always ready to help him
forward; with his talents; with his lithe and gorgeous beauty, the shadow
of which hung on that canvas--what might he not have accomplished? whom
might he not have captivated? And yet where and what was he? A poor and
shunned old man, occupying a lonely house and place that did not belong to
him, married to degradation, with a few years of suspected and solitary
life before him, and then swift oblivion his best portion.

I gazed on the picture, to fix it well and vividly in my remembrance. I
might still trace some of its outlines and tints in its living original,
whom I was next day to see for the first time in my life