The annals of empire are briefly chronicled in family records
brought down to the present day, showing that the race of men is
indeed "like leaves on trees, now green in youth, now withering on
the ground." Yet to the branch the most bare will green leaves
return, so long as the sap can remount to the branch from the root;
but the branch which has ceased to take life from the root--hang it
high, hang it low--is a prey to the wind and the woodman.

It was mid-day. The boy and his new friend were standing apart, as
becomes silent anglers, on the banks of a narrow brawling rivulet,
running through green pastures, half a mile from the house. The sky was
overcast, as Darrell had predicted, but the rain did not yet fall. The
two anglers were not long before they had filled a basket with small
trout. Then Lionel, who was by no means fond of fishing, laid his rod on
the bank, and strolled across the long grass to his companion.

"It will rain soon," said he. "Let us take advantage of the present
time, and hear the flute, while we can yet enjoy the open air. No, not
by the margin, or you will be always looking after the trout. On the
rising ground, see that old thorn tree; let us go and sit under it. The
new building looks well from it. What a pile it would have been! I may
not ask you, I suppose, why it is left uncompleted. Perhaps it would
have cost too much, or would have been disproportionate to the estate."

"To the present estate it would have been disproportioned, but not to the
estate Mr. Darrell intended to add to it. As to cost, you don't know
him. He would never have undertaken what he could not afford to
complete; and what he once undertook, no thoughts of the cost would have
scared him from finishing. Prodigious mind,--granite! And so rich!"