Lancelot, in the meantime, shrank from meeting Argemone; and was
quite glad of the weakness which kept him upstairs. Whether he was
afraid of her--whether he was ashamed of himself or of his crutches,
I cannot tell, but I daresay, reader, you are getting tired of all
this soul-dissecting. So we will have a bit of action again, for
the sake of variety, if for nothing better.

Of all the species of lovely scenery which England holds, none,
perhaps, is more exquisite than the banks of the chalk-rivers--the
perfect limpidity of the water, the gay and luxuriant vegetation of
the banks and ditches, the masses of noble wood embosoming the
villages, the unique beauty of the water-meadows, living sheets of
emerald and silver, tinkling and sparkling, cool under the fiercest
sun, brilliant under the blackest clouds.--There, if anywhere, one
would have expected to find Arcadia among fertility, loveliness,
industry, and wealth. But, alas for the sad reality! the cool
breath of those glittering water-meadows too often floats laden with
poisonous miasma. Those picturesque villages are generally the
perennial hotbeds of fever and ague, of squalid penury, sottish
profligacy, dull discontent too stale for words. There is luxury in
the park, wealth in the huge farm-steadings, knowledge in the
parsonage: but the poor? those by whose dull labour all that luxury
and wealth, ay, even that knowledge, is made possible--what are
they? We shall see, please God, ere the story's end.

But of all this Lancelot as yet thought nothing. He, too, had to be
emancipated, as much as Argemone, from selfish dreams; to learn to
work trustfully in the living Present, not to gloat sentimentally
over the unreturning Past. But his time was not yet come; and