by break of day. But you say, 'if he ever reached Yorkshire,'--What
should prevent him?"

"His health!" said the non-hypochondriac, "I should not be greatly
surprised if--if--In short you had better look at the grave-stones by the
way, for the name of Clarke."

"Perhaps you can give me the dates, Sir," said Walter, somewhat cast down
from his elation.

"Ay! I'll see, I'll see, after dinner; the commonness of the name has its
disadvantages now. Poor Geoffrey!--I dare say there are fifty tombs, to
the memory of fifty Clarkes, between this and York. But come, Sir,
there's the dinner-bell."

Whatever might have been the maladies entailed upon the portly frame of
Mr. Courtland by the vegetable life of the departed trees, a want of
appetite was not among the number. Whenever a man is not abstinent from
rule, or from early habit, as in the case of Aram, Solitude makes its
votaries particularly fond of their dinner. They have no other event
wherewith to mark their day--they think over it, they anticipate it,
they nourish its soft idea with their imagination; if they do look
forward to any thing else more than dinner, it is--supper!

Mr. Courtland deliberately pinned the napkin to his waistcoat, ordered
all the windows to be thrown open, and set to work like the good Canon in
Gil Blas. He still retained enough of his former self, to preserve an
excellent cook; so far at least as the excellence of a she-artist goes;
and though most of his viands were of the plainest, who does not know
what skill it requires to produce an unexceptionable roast, or a