"Ah, but you are not too old for repentance. Burleigh now requires nothing but a mistress." "Perhaps it may soon receive that addition. I am yet undecided whether I shall sell it." "Sell it! sell Burleigh!--the last memorial of your mother's ancestry! the classic retreat of the graceful Digbys! Sell Burleigh!" "I had almost resolved to do so when I came hither; then I forswore the intention: now again I sometimes sorrowfully return to the idea." "And in Heaven's name, why?" "My old restlessness returns. Busy myself as I will here, I find the range of action monotonous and confined. I began too soon to draw around me the large circumference of literature and action; and the small provincial sphere seems to me a sad going back in life. Perhaps I should not feel this, were my home less lonely; but as it is--no, the wanderer's ban is on me, and I again turn towards the lands of excitement and adventure." "I understand this, Ernest; but why is your home so solitary? You are still at the age in which wise and congenial unions are the most frequently formed; your temper is domestic; your easy fortune and sobered ambition allow you to choose without reference to worldly considerations. Look round the world, and mix with the world again, and give Burleigh the mistress it requires." Maltravers shook his head, and sighed. "I do not say," continued Cleveland, wrapped in the glowing interest of the theme, "that you should marry a mere girl, but an amiable woman, who, like yourself, has seen something of life, and knows how to reckon on its cares, and to be contented with its enjoyments." "You have said enough," said Maltravers, impatiently; "an experienced woman of the world, whose freshness of hope and heart is gone! What a picture! No, to me there is something inexpressibly beautiful in innocence and youth. But you say justly,--my years are not those that would make a union with youth desirable or well suited." "I do _not_ say that," said Cleveland, taking a pinch of snuff; "but you should avoid great disparity of age,--not for the sake of that disparity itself, but because with it is involved discord of temper, pursuits. A _very_ young woman, new to the world, will not be contented with home alone; you are at once too gentle to curb her wishes, and a little too stern and reserved--pardon me for saying so--to be quite congenial to very early and sanguine youth." "It is true," said Maltravers, with a tone of voice that showed he was struck with the remark; "but how have we fallen on this subject? let us change it. I have no idea of marriage,--the gloomy reminiscence of Florence Lascelles chains me to the past." "Poor Florence, she might once have suited you; but now you are older, and would require a calmer and more malleable temper." "Peace, I implore you!"