creditors received about five shillings in the pound. He felt that
the fair name of his family was stained, and he was consumed with a
passion to repay his brother's debts and to recover possession of
the old house and land which had been sold. He went abroad, worked
hard, and met with a lady who was rich whom he really admired. His
love for his betrothed had been weakened by absence, the engagement,
for some trifling reason, was broken off, and he married the
heiress. At the end of five years he returned to England,
discharged every liability, and in two years more was the owner of
his birthplace. The marriage, alas! was unhappy. There was no
obtrusive fault in his wife, but he did not love her. She could not
understand his resolution to take upon himself his brother's debts,
and she thought the price he paid for the house was excessive, as
indeed it was. She was a good manager, but without imagination. He
was rejoicing, in her presence, one spring morning that he had been
wakened by the clamour of the rooks with which he had been familiar
ever since he was a boy, and her reply was that an estate equal in
value to his own and possessing a bigger rookery had been offered
him for less money by one-third than he had thrown away.
Unfortunately it is not in management or morality that we crave
companionship. It is in religion and in the deepest emotions that
we thirst for it. Gradually he became wretched, and life was almost
unbearable. She took no pleasure in the ancient place and its
beautiful garden, he never asked her to admire them, and there was
neither son nor daughter to inherit his pious regard. At this point
I was obliged to introduce the Deus ex machina, and the wife died.
The widower sought out his first love; she had never wavered in her
affection to him; they were married, had children, and were happy.

My tale was a youthful blunder. It was not really a tale. I