Austin had been thinking that it was best that I should leave London as
soon as possible; that my father found he could now dispense with the
library of the Museum for some months; that the time for which they had
taken their lodgings would be up in a few days: that the summer was far
advanced, town odious, the country beautiful,--in a word, we were to go
home. There I could prepare myself for Cambridge till the long vacation
was over; and, my mother added hesitatingly, and with a prefatory
caution to spare my health, that my father, whose income could ill
afford the requisite allowance to me, counted on my soon lightening his
burden by getting a scholarship. I felt how much provident kindness
there was in all this,--even in that hint of a scholarship, which was
meant to rouse my faculties and spur me, by affectionate incentives, to
a new ambition. I was not less delighted than grateful.

"But poor Roland," said I, "and little Blanche,--will they come with
us?"

"I fear not," said my mother; "for Roland is anxious to get back to his
tower, and in a day or two he will be well enough to move."

"Do you not think, my dear mother, that, somehow or other, this lost son
of his had something to do with Roland's illness,--that the illness was
as much mental as physical?"

"I have no doubt of it, Sisty. What a sad, bad heart that young man
must have!"

"My uncle seems to have abandoned all hope of finding him in London;
otherwise, ill as he has been, I am sure we could not have kept him at
home. So he goes back to the old tower. Poor man, he must be dull