"I leave your ladyship alone in your hermitage. How all the men in
this assembly will envy the hermit!"



CHAPTER II.

"I AM glad to see you once more in the world," said Lady Glenalvon;
"and I trust that you are now prepared to take that part in it which
ought to be no mean one if you do justice to your talents and your
nature."

KENELM.--"When you go to the theatre, and see one of the pieces which
appear now to be the fashion, which would you rather be,--an actor or
a looker-on?"

LADY GLENALVON.--"My dear young friend, your question saddens me."
(After a pause.)--"But though I used a stage metaphor when I expressed
my hope that you would take no mean part in the world, the world is
not really a theatre. Life admits of no lookers-on. Speak to me
frankly, as you used to do. Your face retains its old melancholy
expression. Are you not happy?"

KENELM.--"Happy, as mortals go, I ought to be. I do not think I am
unhappy. If my temper be melancholic, melancholy has a happiness of
its own. Milton shows that there are as many charms in life to be
found on the /Penseroso/ side of it as there are on the /Allegro/."

LADY GLENALVON.--"Kenelm, you saved the life of my poor son, and when,