‘Yes, dearest, and by and by I will put up for Seacomb, and try to make a little character in the House, for your sake,’ replied Mr. Penwyn, with a yawn. ‘It’s a wonderful thing how ambitious a man feels while he has his living to win, and only his own wits to help him. Then, indeed, the distant blast of Fame’s trumpet is a sound that wakes him early in the morning, and keeps him at his post in the night watches. But then fame means income, position, the world’s esteem, all the good things of life. The penniless struggler knows he must be Cæsar or nothing. Give the same man a comfortable estate like Penwyn, and fame becomes a mere addendum to his life, an ornament which vanity may desire, but which hardly weighs against the delight of idle days and nights that know not care. In short, darling, since I won fortune and you I have grown somewhat forgetful of the dreams I cherished when I was a struggling bachelor.’ ‘Is it regret for those old dreams that makes you so gloomy sometimes, Churchill?’ ‘I do not regret them. I regret nothing. I am not gloomy,’ said Churchill, eagerly. ‘Never question my happiness, Madge. Joy is a spirit too subtle to endure a doubter’s analysis. God forbid that you and I should be otherwise than utterly happy. Oh, my dear love, never doubt me; let us live for each other, and let me at least be sure that I have made your life all sunshine.’ ‘It has never known a cloud since our betrothal, Churchill; except when I have thought you depressed and despondent.’ ‘Neither depressed nor despondent, Madge, only thoughtful. A man whose early days have been for the most part given up to thinking must have his hours of thoughtfulness now and then. And perhaps my life here has smacked a little too much of the Lotus Land. I must begin to look about me, and take more interest in the estate,—in short, follow in the footsteps of my worthy grandfather, the old Squire; as soon as I can add the respectable name of father to my qualifications for the post.’ That time came before the sickle had been put to the last patch of corn upon the uplands above Penwyn Manor. The halting bell of Penwyn Church rang out its shrill peal one August morning, and the little world within earshot of the Manor knew that the Squire rejoiced in the coming of his firstborn. There were almost as many bonfires in the district that summer night, outflaring the mellow harvest moon, as at Penzance on the eve of St. John the Evangelist. The firstborn was a son, whose advent the newspapers, local and metropolitan, duly recorded,—‘At Penwyn Manor, August 25th, the wife of Churchill Penwyn, Esq., of a son (Nugent Churchill).’ The new-comer’s names had been settled beforehand. ‘The sweet thing,’ exclaimed Lady Cheshunt, when she read the announcement in the reading-room of a German Kursaal. ‘I feel as if she had made me a grandmother.’