The early matin prime, she was wont to say, was always her brightest
hour, but it found her, on the present occasion, white and worn, not
with her long vigil, but because it was "borne in upon her," as poor
Joanna used to say, that her son and she must part for his own good: so
soon as the spring should come she would bid him go. London, where all
was prudence and constraint, was no place to win the bride she sought
for him. He should go forth into the country, where even heiresses were
still girls, and win her, as troubadour of old, but with sketch-book in
hand instead of harp. Not a promising scheme, one might say; but then,
what schemes for a young man's future, who has no money, _are_ promising
nowadays? Moreover, it could be said of it (as can not be often said)
that, such as it was, her Richard was by nature adapted for it;
and--though this was a less satisfactory reflection--was adapted for
nothing else.




CHAPTER XI.

THE GUIDE TO GETHIN.


It is the spring-time, that time of all the year when those "in city
pent" desire most to leave it, if only for a day or two, and breathe the
air of the mountain or the sea; the time when the freshest incense
arises from the great altar of Nature, and all men would come to worship
at it if they could. Even the old, who so far from the East have
traveled that they have well-nigh forgotten their priesthood, feel the