ringing
accents, of her own social schemes and devices,--

"I shall miss you when you are gone, Allen Fenwick; for though, during
the last year or so, all actual intercourse between us has ceased,
yet my interest in you gave some occupation to my thoughts when I sat
alone,--having lost my main object of ambition in settling my daughter,
and having no longer any one in the house with whom I could talk of the
future, or for whom I could form a project. It is so wearisome to count
the changes which pass within us, that we take interest in the changes
that pass without. Poyntz still has his weather-glass; I have no longer
my Jane."

"I cannot linger with you on this spot," said I, impatiently turning
back into the path; she followed, treading over fallen leaves. And
unheeding my interruption, she thus continued her hard talk,--

"But I am not sick of my mind, as you seem to be of yours; I am only
somewhat tired of the little cage in which, since it has been alone, it
ruffles its plumes against the flimsy wires that confine it from wider
space. I shall take up my home for a time with the new-married couple:
they want me. Ashleigh Sumner has come into parliament. He means to
attend regularly and work hard, but he does not like Jane to go into
the world by herself, and he wishes her to go into the world, because he
wants a wife to display his wealth for the improvement of his position.
In Ashleigh Sumner's house I shall have ample scope for my energies,
such as they are. I have a curiosity to see the few that perch on the
wheels of the State and say, 'It is we who move the wheels!' It will
amuse me to learn if I can maintain in a capital the authority I
have won in a country town; if not, I can but return to my small
principality. Wherever I live I must sway, not serve. If I succeed--as I
ought, for in Jane's beauty and Ashleigh's fortune I have materials
for the woof of ambition, wanting which here, I fall asleep over my
knitting--if I succeed, there will be enough to occupy the rest of my
life. Ashleigh Sumner must be a power; the power will be represented and
enjoyed by my child, and created and maintained by me! Allen Fenwick,
do as I do. Be world with the world, and it will only be in moments of
spleen and chagrin that you will sigh to think that the heart may be
void when the mind is full. Confess you envy me while you listen."

"Not so; all that to you seems so great appears to me so small! Nature
alone is always gr