'Poor papa failed to fulfil his good intention for want of time,
didn't he, Owen? And there was an excuse for his past, though he
never would claim it. I never forget that original disheartening
blow, and how that from it sprang all the ills of his life
--everything connected with his gloom, and the lassitude in
business we used so often to see about him.'

'I remember what he said once,' returned the brother, 'when I sat up
late with him. He said, "Owen, don't love too blindly: blindly you
will love if you love at all, but a little care is still possible to
a well-disciplined heart. May that heart be yours as it was not
mine," father said. "Cultivate the art of renunciation." And I am
going to, Cytherea.'

'And once mamma said that an excellent woman was papa's ruin,
because he did not know the way to give her up when he had lost her.
I wonder where she is now, Owen? We were told not to try to find
out anything about her. Papa never told us her name, did he?'

'That was by her own request, I believe. But never mind her; she
was not our mother.'

The love affair which had been Ambrose Graye's disheartening blow
was precisely of that nature which lads take little account of, but
girls ponder in their hearts.

5. FROM OCTOBER THE NINETEENTH TO JULY THE NINTH

Thus Ambrose Graye's good intentions with regard to the
reintegration of his property had scarcely taken tangible form