As they walked along side by side, neither spoke till they came close to the gate; then Conyers halted and said, “Can you think of nothing I can do for you, or is there nothing you would leave to my charge after you have gone?” “No, sir, nothing.” He paused, and then, as if with a struggle, said, “Except you 'd write one line to my sister Polly, to tell her that I went away in good heart, that I did n't give in one bit, and that if it was n't for thinking that maybe I 'd never see her again--” He faltered, his voice grew thick, he tried to cough down the rising emotion, but the feeling overcame him, and he burst out into tears. Ashamed at the weakness he was endeavoring to deny, he sprang through the gate and disappeared. Conyers slowly returned to his quarters, very thoughtful and very sad. CHAPTER XXVII. THE CONVENT ON THE MEUSE While poor Tom Dill, just entering upon life, went forth in gloom and disappointment to his first venture, old Peter Barrington, broken by years and many a sorrow, set out on his journey with a high heart and a spirit well disposed to see everything in its best light and be pleased with all around him. Much of this is, doubtless, matter of temperament; but I suspect, too, that all of us have more in our power in this way than we practise. Barrington had possibly less merit than his neighbors, for nature had given him one of those happy dispositions upon which the passing vexations of life produce scarcely any other effect than a stimulus to humor, or a tendency to make them the matter of amusing memory. He had lived, besides, so long estranged from the world, that life had for him all the interests of a drama, and he could no more have felt angry with the obtrusive waiter or the roguish landlord than he would with their fictitious representatives on the stage. They were, in his eyes, parts admirably played, and no more; he watched them with a sense of humorous curiosity, and laughed heartily at successes of which he was himself the victim. Miss Barrington was no disciple of this school; rogues to her were simply rogues, and no histrionic sympathies dulled the vexation they gave her. The world, out of which she had lived so long, had, to her thinking, far from improved in the mean while. People were less deferential, less courteous than of old. There was an indecent haste and bustle about everything, and a selfish disregard of one's neighbor was the marked feature of all travel. While her brother repaid himself for many an inconvenience by thinking over some strange caprice, or some curious inconsistency in human nature,--texts for amusing afterthought,--she only winced under the infliction, and chafed at every instance of cheating or impertinence that befell them.