folks, who, if materialists, are so without knowing it, unreflectingly
say, "The main element of happiness is bodily or animal health and
strength," that question which Chillingly put would appear a very
unmeaning or a very insulting one addressed to a pale cripple, who
however improved of late in health, would still be sickly and ailing
all his life,--put, too, by a man of the rarest conformation of
physical powers that nature can adapt to physical enjoyment,--a man
who, since the age in which memory commences, had never known what it
was to be unwell, who could scarcely understand you if you talked of a
finger-ache, and whom those refinements of mental culture which
multiply the delights of the senses had endowed with the most
exquisite conceptions of such happiness as mere nature and its
instincts can give! But Will did not think the question unmeaning or
insulting. He, the poor cripple, felt a vast superiority on the scale
of joyous being over the young Hercules, well born, cultured, and
wealthy, who could know so little of happiness as to ask the crippled
basket-maker if he were happy.--he, blessed husband and father!



CHAPTER V.

LILY was seated on the grass under a chestnut-tree on the lawn. A
white cat, not long emerged from kittenhood, curled itself by her
side. On her lap was an open volume, which she was reading with the
greatest delight.

Mrs. Cameron came from the house, looked round, perceived the girl,
and approached; and either she moved so gently, or Lily was so
absorbed in the book, that the latter was not aware of her presence