Heaven knows how many days, without the power to escape. Lucky fellow, Arthur, was my second thought; capital quarters you have fallen into. Better far the snug comforts of a Flemish château than the chances of a wayside inn. Besides, here is a goodly company met together; there will needs be pleasant people among them. I wish it may rain these three weeks; château life is the very thing I'm curious about. How do they get through the day? There's no Times in Flanders; no one cares a farthing about who's in and who's out. There's no Derby, no trials for murder. What can they do? was the question I put to myself a dozen times over. No matter, I have abundant occupation; my journal has never been posted up since-since-alas, I can scarcely tell!

It might be from reflections like these, or perhaps because I was less of a sportsman than my companions, but certainly, whatever the cause, I bore up against the disappointment of the weather with far more philosophy than they, and dispersed a sack of proverbs about patience, hope, equanimity, and contentment which Sancho Panza himself might have envied, until at length no one ventured a malediction on the day in my presence, for fear of eliciting a hailstorm of moral reflections. The company dropped down to breakfast by detachments, the elated looks and flashing eyes of the night before saddened and overcast at the unexpected change. Even the elders of the party seemed discontented; and except myself and an old gentleman with the gout, who took an airing about the hall and the drawing-room in a wheel-chair, all seemed miserable.

Each window had its occupant posted against the glass, vainly endeavouring to catch one bit of blue amid the dreary waste of cloud. A little group, sulky and silent, were gathered around the weather-glass; a literary inquirer sat down to con over the predictions of the almanac. You might as well have looked for sociability among the inhabitants of a private madhouse as here. The weather was cursed in every language from Cherokee

to Sanskrit; all agreed that no country had such an abominable climate. The Yankee praised the summers of America, the Dane upheld his own, and I took a patriotic turn, and vowed I had never seen such rain in Ireland. The master of the house could scarcely show himself amid this torrent of abusive criticism; and when he did by chance appear, he looked as much ashamed as though he himself had pulled out the spigot, and deluged the whole land with water.

Meanwhile, none of those I looked for appeared. Neither the colonel's daughter nor the baronne came down; the abbé too, did not descend to the breakfast room, and I was considerably puzzled and put out by the disappointment.

After then enduring a good hour's boredom from the old colonel on the subject of my late lamented parent, Mark O'Leary; after submitting to a severe cross-examination from the Yankee gentleman as to the reason of my coming abroad, what property and expectations I had, my age and birthplace, what my mother died of, and whether I did not feel very miserable from the abject slavery of submitting to an English Government-I escaped into the library, a fine, comfortable old room, which I rightly conjectured I should find unoccupied.

Selecting a quaint-looking quarto with some curious illuminated pages for my companion, I drew a great deep leather chair into a recess of one window, and hugged myself in my solitude. While I listlessly turned over the leaves of my book, or sat lost in reflection, time crept along, and I heard the great clock of the château strike three; at the same moment a hand fell lightly on my shoulder; I turned about-it was the abbé.

'I half suspected I should find you here,' said he. 'Do I disturb you, or may I keep you company?'

'But too happy,' I replied, 'if you'll do me the favour.' 'I thought,' said he, as he drew a chair opposite to me, 'I thought you'd scarcely play dominoes all day, or discuss waistcoats.'

'In truth I was scarcely better employed; this old volume here which I took down for its plates-'

Ma foi, a most interesting one; it is Guchardi's History of Mary of Burgundy. Those quaint old processions, those venerable councils, are admirably depicted. What rich stores for a romance writer lie in the details of these old books! Their accuracy as to costume, the little traits of everyday life, are so naïvely told; every little domestic incident is so full of its characteristic era. I wonder, when the springs are so accessible, men do not draw more frequently from them, and more purely also.'

'You forget Scott.'

'No; far from it. He is the great exception; and from his intimate acquaintance with this class of reading is he so immeasurably superior to all other writers of his style. Not merely tinctured, but deeply imbued with the habits of the feudal period, the traits by which others attempt to paint the time with him were mere accessories in the picture; costume and architecture he used to heighten, not to convey his impressions; and while no one knew better every minute particular of dress or arms that betokened a period or a class, none more sparingly used such aid. He felt the same delicacy certain ancient artists did as to the introduction of pure white into their pictures, deeming such an unfair exercise of skill. But why venture to speak of your countryman to you, save that genius is above nationality, and Scott's novels at least are European.'

After chatting for some time longer, and feeling struck with the extent and variety of the abbe's attainments, I half dropped a hint expressive of my surprise that one so cultivated as he was could apparently so readily comply with the monotonous routine of a château life, and the little prospect it afforded of his meeting congenial associates. Far from feeling offended at the liberty of my remark, he replied at once with a smile

'You are wrong there, and the error is a common one; but when you have seen more of life, you will learn that

a man's own resources are the only real gratifications he can count upon. Society, like a field-day, may offer the occasion to display your troops and put them through their manœuvres; but, believe me, it is a rare and a lucky day when you go back richer by one recruit, and the chance is that even he is a cripple, and must be sent about his business. People, too, will tell you much of the advantage to be derived from associating with men of distinguished and gifted minds. I have seen something of such in my time, and give little credit to the theory. You might as well hope to obtain credit for a thousand pounds because you took off your hat to a banker.'

The abbé paused after this, and seemed to be occupied with his own thoughts; then raising his head suddenly, he said

'As to happiness, believe me, it lives only in the extremes of perfect vacuity or true genius. Your clever fellow, with a vivid fancy and glowing imagination, strong feeling and strong power of expression, has no chance of it. The excitement he lives in is alone a bar to the tranquil character of thought necessary to happiness; and however cold a man may feel, he should never warm himself through a burning-glass.'

There seemed through all he said something like a retrospective tone, as though he were rather giving the fruit of past personal experiences than merely speculating on the future; and I could not help throwing out a hint to this purport.

'Perhaps you are right,' said he; then, after a long silence, he added: 'It is a fortunate thing after all when the faults of a man's temperament are the source of some disappointment in early life, because then they rarely endanger his subsequent career. Let him only escape the just punishment, whatever it be, and the chances are that they embitter every hour of his after-life. His whole care and study being not correction, but concealment, he lives a life of daily duplicity; the fear of detection is over him

at every step he takes; and he plays a part so constantly that he loses all real character at last in the frequency of dissimulation. Shall I tell you a little incident with which I became acquainted in early life. If you have nothing better to do, it may while away the hours before dinner.'

CHAPTER XIII

THE ABBÉ'S STORY

'WITHOUT tiring you with any irrelevant details of the family and relatives of my hero, if I dare call him such, I may mention that he was the second son of an old Belgian family of some rank and wealth, and that in accordance with the habits of his house he was educated for the career of diplomacy. For this purpose, a life of travel was deemed the best preparation-foreign languages being the chief requisite, with such insight into history, national law, and national usages as any young man with moderate capacity and assiduity can master in three or four years.

"The chief of the Dutch mission at Frankfort was an old diplomat of some distinction, but who, had it not been from causes purely personal towards the king, would not have quitted The Hague for any embassy whatever. He was a widower, with an only daughter-one of those true types of Dutch beauty which Terburg was so fond of painting. There are people who can see nothing but vulgarity in the class of features I speak of, and yet nothing in reality is farther from it. Hers was a mild, placid face, a wide, candid-looking forehead, down either side of which two braids of sunny brown hair fell; her skin, fair as alabaster, had the least tinge of colour, but her lips were full, and of a carmine hue, that gave a character of brilliancy to the whole countenance; her figure inclined to embonpoint, was exquisitely moulded, and in her walk there appeared the composed and resolute carriage of one whose temperament, however mild and unruffled, was still