resemblance to the childish wilfulness with which his wife had trifled with her health, occurred to him, increasing his vexation by gloomy shadows of the past.
His silent mortification and kind anxiety went to his son's heart. Louis was no less disappointed in himself, in finding his own judgment as untrustworthy as ever, since the exploit that had been a perpetual feast to his chivalrous fancy had turned out a mere piece of self-willed imprudence, destroying all the newly-bestowed and highly-valued good opinion of his father; and even in itself, incompetently executed. 'He had made a fool of himself every way.' That had been James's first dictum, and he adopted it from conviction.
In the course of the day, goodnatured, fat Sir Gilbert Brewster, the colonel of the yeomanry, who had been seriously uneasy at his looks, and had tried to send him home, rode over to inquire for him, complimenting him on being 'thorough game to the last.' Louis relieved his mind by apologies for his blunders, whereupon he learnt that his good colonel had never discovered them, and now only laughed at them, and declared that they were mere trifles to what the whole corps, officers and men, committed whenever they met, and no one cared except one old sergeant who had been in the Light Dragoons. Louis's very repentance for them was another piece of absurdity. He smiled, indeed, but seemed to give himself up as a hopeless subject. His spirits flagged as they had not done throughout his illness, and, unwell, languid, and depressed, he spent his days without an attempt to rally. He was only too conscious of his own inconsistency, but he had not energy enough to resume any of the habits that Mary had so diligently nursed, neglected even his cottage-building, would not trouble himself to consider the carpenter's questions, forgot messages, put off engagements, and seemed to have only just vigour enough to be desultory, tease James, and spoil Clara.
Lord Ormersfield became alarmed, and called in doctors, who recommended sea air, and James suggested a secluded village on the Yorkshire coast, where some friends had been reading in the last long vacation. This was to be the break-up of the party; Mrs. Frost and the two Marys would resort to Dynevor Terrace, Clara would return to school, and James undertook the charge of Louis, who took such exceedingly little heed to the arrangements, that Jem indignantly told him that he cared neither for himself nor anybody else.
CHAPTER XI. A HALTING PROPOSAL.
Shallow. Will you upon good dowry, marry her? Slender. I will do a greater thing than that, upon your request. Merry Wives of Windsor.
The first thing that Louis did appear to care for was a letter that arrived about three days previous to their departure, addressed to 'Lord Fitsgosling, Hawmsfield Park, Northwold.' Rather too personal, as he observed, he must tell his correspondent that it hurt his feelings. The correspondent was Tom Madison, whose orthography lagged behind his other attainments, if his account might be trusted of 'they lectures on Kemistry.' His penmanship was much improved, and he was prospering, with hopes of promotion and higher wages, when he should have learnt to keep accounts. He liked Mr. Dobbs and the chaplain, and wished to know how to send a crown per post to 'old granfer up at Marksedge; because he is too ignorant to get a border sinned. Please, my lord, give my duty to him and all enquiring friends, and to Schirlt, up at the Teras.'
Highly amused, Louis lay on the uppermost step from the library window, in the cool summer evening, laughing over the letter. 'There, Aunt Kitty, he said, 'I commit that tender greeting to your charge,' and as she looked doubtful, 'Yes, do, there's a good aunt and mistress.'
'I am afraid I should not be a good mistress; I ought not to sanction it.'
'Better sanction it above board than let it go on by stealth,' said Louis. 'You are her natural protector.'
'So much the more reason against it! I ought to wish her to forget this poor boy of yours.'
'Ay, and light Hymen's torch with some thriving tallow chandler, who would marry a domestic slave as a good speculation, without one spark of the respectful chivalrous love that-'
'Hush! you absurd boy.'
'Well, then, if you won't, I shall go to Jane. The young ladies are all too cold and too prudent, but Jane has a soft spot in her heart, and will not think true love is confined within the rank that keeps a gig. I did think Aunt Kitty had been above vulgar prejudices.'
'Not above being coaxed by you, you gosling, you,' said Aunt Kitty; 'only you must come out of the dew, the sun is quite gone.'
'Presently,' said Louis, as she retreated by the window.
'I would not have been too cold or too prudent!' said Clara.
'I well believe it!'
'You will be one if you are not the other,' said Mary, gathering her work up, with the dread of one used to tropical dews. 'Are not you coming in?'
'When I can persuade myself to write a letter of good advice, a thing I hate.'
'Which,' asked Mary; 'giving or receiving it?'
'Receiving, of course.'-'Giving, of course,' said Clara and Louis at the same instant.
'Take mine, then,' said Mary, 'and come out of the damp.'
'Mary is so tiresome about these things!' cried Clara, as their cousin retreated. 'Such fidgetting nonsense.'
'I once argued it with her,' said Louis, without stirring; 'and she had the right side, that it is often more self- denying to take care of one's health, than to risk it for mere pleasure or heedlessness.'
'There's no dew!' said Clara; 'and if there was, it would not hurt, and if it did, I should be too glad to catch a cold, or something to keep me at home. Oh, if I could only get into a nice precarious state of health!'
'You would soon wish yourself at school, or anywhere else, so that you could feel some life in your limbs,' half sighed Louis.
'I've more than enough! Oh! how my feet ache to run! and my throat feels stifled for want of making a noise, and the hatefulness of always sitting upright, with my shoulders even! Come, you might pity me a little this one night, Louis: I know you do, for Jem is always telling me not to let you set me against it.'
'No, I don't pity you. Pity is next akin to contempt.'
'Nonsense, Louis. Do be in earnest.'
'I have seldom seen the human being whom I could presume to pity: certainly not you, bravely resisting folly and temptation, and with so dear and noble a cause for working.'
'You mean, the hope of helping to maintain grandmamma.'
'Which you will never be able to do, unless you pass through this ordeal, and qualify yourself for skilled labour.'
'I know that,' said Clara; 'but the atmosphere there seems to poison, and take the vigour out of all they teach. Oh, so different from granny teaching me my notes, or Jem teaching me French-'
'Growling at you-'
'He never growled half as much as, I deserved. I cared to learn of him; but I don't care for anything now,-no, not for drawing, which you taught me! There's no heart in it! The whole purpose is to get amazing numbers of marks and pass each other. All dates and words, and gabble gabble!'
'Ay! there's an epitome of the whole world: all ambition, and vanity, and gabble gabble,' said Louis, sadly. 'And what is a gosling, that he should complain?'
'You don't mean that in reality. You are always merry.
'Some mirth is because one does not always think, Clara; and when one does think deeply enough, there is better cheerfulness.'
'Deeply enough,' said Clara. 'Ah! I see. Knowing that the world of gabble is not what we belong to, only a preparation? Is that it!'
'It is what I meant.'
'Ah I but how to make that knowledge help us.'
'There's the point. Now and then, I think I see; but then I go off on a wrong tack: I get a silly fit, and a hopeless one, and lose my clue. And yet, after all, there is a highway; and wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein,' murmured Louis, as he gazed on the first star of evening.
'Oh! tell me how to see my highway at school!'
'If I only kept my own at home, I might. But you have the advantage- -you have a fixed duty, and you always have kept hold of your purposes much better than I.'
'My purpose!' said Clara. 'I suppose that is to learn as fast as I can, that I may get away from that place, and
