solitary scholar. I comprehended, too, how gradually and slowly, as my
father entered that stage of middle life when all men are most prone to
ambition, the long-silenced whispers were heard again, and the mind, at
last escaping from the listless weight which a baffled and disappointed
heart had laid upon it, saw once more, fair as in youth, the only true
mistress of Genius,--Fame.

Oh! how I sympathized, too, in my mother's gentle triumph. Looking over
the past, I could see, year after year, how she had stolen more and more
into my father's heart of hearts; how what had been kindness had grown
into love; how custom and habit, and the countless links in the sweet
charities of home, had supplied that sympathy with the genial man which
had been missed at first by the lonely scholar.

Next I thought of the gray, eagle-eyed old soldier, with his ruined
tower and barren acres, and saw before me his proud, prejudiced,
chivalrous boyhood, gliding through the ruins or poring over the mouldy
pedigree. And this son, so disowned,--for what dark offence? An awe
crept over me. And this girl,--his ewe-lamb, his all,--was she fair?
had she blue eyes like my mother, or a high Roman nose and beetle brows
like Captain Roland? I mused and mused and mused; and the candle went
out, and the moonlight grew broader and stiller; till at last I was
sailing in a balloon with Uncle Jack, and had just tumbled into the Red
Sea, when the well-known voice of Nurse Primmins restored me to life
with a "God bless my heart! the boy has not been in bed all this 'varsal
night!"