As they walked along, the younger of the two remained in silent thought. He was not full of the energetic inspiration of hope; and the flame of expectation had waned dim and low. Doubtless he had dreamed bright dreams in former times--doubtless he had looked at life through youth's magnifying-glass--doubtless his anticipations had been exuberant of the pleasant things of the future. But there seemed a fiat gone out against him,--that he was not to enjoy even that which had seemed within grasp. He looked over the future that he had fancied his own but a few days before, and felt that, like the prophet on "the top of Pisgah, which is over against Jericho," though there was a fair land in sight, his feet would never tread it. He felt that he had been proud, that he was proud; and he resolved to humble himself. But there was a bitterness in his humility which produced a wayward pettishness in all the plans which floated, like wreaths of smoke, before his mind. They were many, many, like the troops of strange forms which sometimes sweep--as it were, interminably--before the eyes in dreams. Varying were they too, shifting and changing in hue, and form, and position, like the streamers of the northern meteor lights. Now he would forth into the great and busy world, and cull honour and distinction with a fiery energy, with the genius he knew himself to possess, with the learning he was conscious he had acquired, with the courage he felt in heart. He would seek the camp, or the court, or the bar, or the pulpit. He would make himself independent, he would make himself great. Then again he said, No; he would cast off all the ties which had hitherto bound him; the ties of blood, of station, of society. He would take his position at the lowest grade, at the very bottom of the ladder. He would try a state entirely new, a condition different from all he had yet tried, and see what would come of it. He could change, if he liked. His mind need not rust in humble life; his abilities would not get mouldy; his small means would accumulate: He would even, he thought, from time to time vary the scene: place humble life and a higher condition side by side, upon alternate days, and judge between them. As first disappointment is always whimsical, it was upon the last scheme that his thoughts most pleasantly rested; and with it he busied himself as, crossing the further part of the park, they approached the river. The point they made for was lower down than where he had swum across; but he paid little attention to anything; and the first thing that roused him was the sudden rising of a plump of teal from the rushes. They whirled round in a dense cloud. Lockwood's gun was up in a moment, fired, and four birds came down together. Then Chandos gazed at the rushing water, red and foaming, and he thought it marvellous that he had ever crossed it alive. "Perhaps it would have been better," he said bitterly to himself, "if