The Caxtons — Volume 09 by Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton
page 31 of 37 (83%)
page 31 of 37 (83%)
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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 |
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