I am yet undecided whether I shall sell it."
"Sell it! sell Burleigh!--the last memorial of your mother's ancestry! the classic retreat of the graceful Digbys! Sell Burleigh!"
"I had almost resolved to do so when I came hither; then I forswore the intention: now again I sometimes sorrowfully return to the idea."
"And in Heaven's name, why?"
"My old restlessness returns. Busy myself as I will here, I find the range of action monotonous and confined. I began too soon to draw around me the large circumference of literature and action; and the small provincial sphere seems to me a sad going back in life. Perhaps I should not feel this, were my home less lonely; but as it is--no, the wanderer's ban is on me, and I again turn towards the lands of excitement and adventure."
"I understand this, Ernest; but why is your home so solitary? You are still at the age in which wise and congenial unions are the most frequently formed; your temper is domestic; your easy fortune and sobered ambition allow you to choose without reference to worldly considerations. Look round the world, and mix with the world again, and give Burleigh the mistress it requires."
Maltravers shook his head, and sighed.
"I do not say," continued Cleveland, wrapped in the glowing interest of the theme, "that you should marry a mere girl, but an amiable woman, who, like yourself, has seen something of life, and knows how to reckon on its cares, and to be contented with its enjoyments."
"You have said enough," said Maltravers, impatiently; "an experienced woman of the world, whose freshness of hope and heart is gone! What a picture! No, to me there is something inexpressibly beautiful in innocence and youth. But you say justly,--my years are not those that would make a union with youth desirable or well suited."
"I do not say that," said Cleveland, taking a pinch of snuff; "but you should avoid great disparity of age,--not for the sake of that disparity itself, but because with it is involved discord of temper, pursuits. A very young woman, new to the world, will not be contented with home alone; you are at once too gentle to curb her wishes, and a little too stern and reserved--pardon me for saying so--to be quite congenial to very early and sanguine youth."
"It is true," said Maltravers, with a tone of voice that showed he was struck with the remark; "but how have we fallen on this subject? let us change it. I have no idea of marriage,--the gloomy reminiscence of Florence Lascelles chains me to the past."
"Poor Florence, she might once have suited you; but now you are older, and would require a calmer and more malleable temper."
"Peace, I implore you!"
The conversation was changed; and at noon Mr. Merton, who had heard of Cleveland's arrival, called at Burleigh to renew an old acquaintance. He invited them to pass the evening at the rectory; and Cleveland, hearing that whist was a regular amusement, accepted the invitation for his host and himself. But when the evening came, Maltravers pleaded indisposition, and Cleveland was obliged to go alone.
When the old gentleman returned about midnight, he found Maltravers awaiting him in the library; and Cleveland, having won fourteen points, was in a very gay, conversable humour.
"You perverse hermit!" said he, "talk of solitude, indeed, with so pleasant a family a hundred yards distant! You deserve to be solitary,--I have no patience with you. They complain bitterly of your desertion, and say you were, at first, the enfant de la maison."
"So you like the Mertons? The clergyman is sensible, but commonplace."
"A very agreeable man, despite your cynical definition, and plays a very fair rubber. But Vargrave is a first-rate player."
"Vargrave is there still?"
"Yes, he breakfasts with us to-morrow,--he invited himself."
"Humph!"
"He played one rubber; the rest of the evening he devoted himself to the prettiest girl I ever saw,--Miss Cameron. What a sweet face! so modest, yet so intelligent! I talked with her a good deal during the deals in which I cut out. I almost lost my heart to her."
"So Lord Vargrave devoted himself to Miss Cameron?"
"To be sure,--you know they are to be married soon. Merton told me so. She is very rich. He is the luckiest fellow imaginable, that Vargrave! But he is much too old for her: she seems to think so too. I can't explain why I think it; but by her pretty reserved manner I saw that she tried to keep the gay minister at a distance: but it would not do. Now, if you were ten years younger, or Miss Cameron ten years older, you might have had some chance of cutting out your old friend."
"So you think I also am too old for a lover?"
"For a lover of a girl of seventeen, certainly. You seem touchy on the score of age, Ernest."
"Not I;" and Maltravers laughed.
"No? There was a young gentleman present, who, I think, Vargrave might really find a dangerous rival,--a Colonel Legard,--one of the handsomest men I ever saw in my life; just the style to turn a romantic young lady's head; a mixture of the wild and the thoroughbred; black curls, superb eyes, and the softest manners in the world.