in regard
to Mrs. Trevelyan! Till he had met Colonel Osborne, he felt sure,
almost sure, that she would have refused to see that pernicious
troubler of the peace of families. In this he found that he had been
disappointed; but he had not expected that Priscilla would have been
so much opposed to the arrangement which he had made about the house,
and then he had been buoyed up by the anticipation of some delight in
meeting Nora Rowley. There was, at any rate, the excitement of seeing
her to keep his spirits from flagging. He had seen her, and had had
the opportunity of which he had so long been thinking. He had seen
her, and had had every possible advantage on his side. What could any
man desire better than the privilege of walking home with the girl
he loved through country lanes of a summer evening? They had been an
hour together,--or might have been, had he chosen to prolong the
interview. But the words which had been spoken between them had had
not the slightest interest,--unless it were that they had tended to
make the interval between him and her wider than ever. He had asked
her,--he thought that he had asked,--whether it would grieve her to
abandon that delicate, dainty mode of life to which she had been
accustomed; and she had replied, that she would never abandon it of
her own accord. Of course she had intended him to take her at her
word.

He blew forth quick clouds of heavy smoke, as he attempted to make
himself believe that this was all for the best. What would such a one
as he was do with a wife? Or, seeing as he did see, that marriage
itself was quite out of the question, how could it be good either for
him or her that they should be tied together by a long engagement?
Such a future would not at all suit the purpose of his life. In his
life absolute freedom would be needed;--freedom from unnecessary
ties, freedom from unnecessary burdens. His income was most
precarious, and he certainly would not make it less so by submission
to any closer literary thraldom. And he believed himself to be a
Bohemian,--too much of a Bohemian to enjoy a domestic fireside with
children and slippers. To be free to go where he liked, and when he
liked; to think as he pleased; to be driven nowhere by conventional
rules; to use his days, Sundays as well as Mondays, as he pleased
to use them; to turn Republican, if his mind should take him that
way,--or Quaker, or Mormon, or Red Indian, if he wished it, and in so
turning to do no