that's the long and short of friendship; yet,
for books, friends, and Nature, this idiot flung
away a fortune."

Is your balance so very large,
Higginbotham, in that account which every man
keeps with destiny? No pure delight in
God's work, no genial interest in man's; no
sense of love and trust received, no sense—
still more blessed— of love and trust bestowed;
friendship a convenience, religion a routine,
no aim beyond the hour, no use for time but
to kill it; life straitened to its narrowest
point, and no horizon beyond it!

Merton's crowning delinquencies had,
however, yet to be told—how the honorable and
romantic Miss Busby was willing to consign
to him the mature charms of fifty years and
of as many thousand pounds, how the "idiot"
—far from meeting the advances of that
nowise coy Phillis—married a pretty governess
with a dependent mother, and "took to
literature " to support the trio. "Yes," says
Higginbotham, "he was as shy of guineas as
a trout in the dog-days, but he rose at once
to that bait of red and white called beauty.
Yes"—and here Higginbotham evidently
feels that Providence was just—"that was his
investment, and a precious poor one, too; the
girl died in a twelvemonth."

At this point I plead a head-ache, and rise.
My gracious entertainer has a parting fling
at me, and wonders that a gentleman who can
dream himself well when he pleases should
ever put up with a head-ache. The butler's
entrance, however, diverts the attack. That
domestic, having served the ice in a
state approaching to solution, undergoes a
public reprimand; and, as I leave the room,
I learn the precise amount of his wages, and
the surprise of his master that they cannot
secure attention and obedience.

I take my way—carpet-bag in hand—
through the park-like domains. Protected by
the oak-shadows from the dazzling beams of
a July sunset, I strike through the ferns till I
fall into the main sweep and emerge through
the new stone gates crowned by those two
heraldic bears which prove that Higginbotham
himself had been weak enough to
indulge romance one day; though, in this case,
it must be owned, with  no very wide deviation
from fact. I wind along the lane festooned
with its late wild roses and opening
honeysuckles, and in half an hour stand before the
porch of Merton's cottage.

On entering I caught a glimpse of my friend
as he crossed the garden-path behind, his
form steeped in the gold green light that
flowed through the leaves. It may be
fantastic to state this, and yet it was a
peculiarity of Merton that all the happy accidents
of nature seemed to serve him. If he stood
before a tree, it was sure to form an admirable
back-ground; if he leaned by the mantlepiece,
some shadow would so slope on his
figure as to bring his noble head into bold
relief. With another, in the like position,
the same facts would doubtless have occurred,
but not the same effects. His own grace
and simple dignity made you note them. The
inscriptions of Beauty can only be read on
her own tablets.

The motion of his head, as he again turned
to converse with some one at the window,
revealed the countenance which of all, save
my sailor-boy's, I now best loved to look on.
Merton's face had always personified to me
the idea of an English June. It was so in his
youth—the type of a life made vigorous by
the gusts of spring, fulfilling to the heart its
oft baffled yearnings for the beautiful,
replenished with abundant light and joy, yet
stopping short of that fierce glow and rank
luxuriance which precede decay. So had he
seemed, especially on that far-off afternoon,
when to me and one who hung on my arm,
he broke in sounds tremulous as those of
the wind-stirred leaves, the secret of his
accepted love—of his coming union with Lucy
Acton. I remember even now how those
hushed tones gradually became buoyant as
he spoke of that literary career by which he
hoped, not only to benefit himself, but
mankind; "For love," said he, "makes me feel
the duties of life—what I owe to the Giver
of so much happiness. I must deserve
her."

Yonder, behind the orchard, is the spire
of the church by whose gate we paused
as he uttered these words:—That church,
which, having witnessed the growth of our
friendship in a season of mutual joy, saw it
afterwards strike still deeper root in a season
of common grief. We, who within a few
months of each other, had approached one
altar—within a few months also bent over
neighbouring graves.

I had not seen Merton for months. He
met me with a greeting of child-like joy, and
bore me in triumph to the window, almost
lost in clematis, where sat the mother of
Lucy, and from which the arch face of Susan,
Mrs. Acton's niece, peeped out into the clear
twilight. I was next led to the well for the
satisfaction of Hannah, who had served
Merton in the old days of Lucy, and who now
waited while a sturdy boy wound up her
bucket. As a final measure, I was introduced
to the gardener, whom I complimented upon
the beauty of the beds and the picturesque
sweep of the walks. "Nay, it be all Mr.
Merton's planning," replied the man. "A power of
difference he have made in my taste, surely;
though how he got at his notions I beant able
to guess, unless he dreamed on 'em. Why, sir,
at one time I were all for straight walks with
square plots, and pincushion-beds. It was him
as taught me the value of them curves, and
how, at odd corners, to throw out a clump of
shadows and hide what comes next. And
mighty good the effect be, though why or
wherefore I never could find out."

"Can you understand," asked Merton,
"how dull your life would be, if you could