“I have long thought,” said Tracey, “that if we studied the secrets of our English climate a little more carefully than most of us do, we could find, within a very small range, varieties of climate which might allow us to dispense with many a long journey. For instance, do you not observe how much cooler and fresher the atmosphere is here than in the villa yonder, though it is but five miles distant? Here, not only the sun is broken by the forest-trees, but the ground is much more elevated than it is yonder. We get the bracing air of the northern hills, to which I have opened the woods, and here, in the hot relaxing days of summer, I often come for days or weeks together. The lodge is not large enough to admit more than two, or at most three other visitors, and therefore it is only very intimate friends whom I can invite. But I always look forward to a fortnight or so here, as a time to be marked with the whitest chalk, and begin to talk of it as soon as the earliest nightingale is heard. Again, on the other extremity of my property, by the sea-side, I have made my winter residence, my Tarentum, my Naples, my Nice. There the aspect is due south—cliffs, ranged in semicircle, form an artificial screen from the winds and frosts. The cottage I have built there is a sun-trap. At Christmas I breakfast in a bower of geraniums, and walk by hedgerows of fuchsia and myrtle. All this is part of my philosophical plan, on settling down for life—viz., to collect all the enjoyments this life can give me into the smallest possible compass. Before you go, you must see my winter retreat. I should like to prove to you how many climates, with a little heed, an Englishman may find within a limit of twenty miles. I had thought of giving Bellevue (my sea-side cottage) to the Thornhills, and delighted in the thought of becoming their guest in the winter, for aunt. Gertrude does not fancy the place as I do, and wherever I go cannot live quite alone, nor quite without that humanising effect of drawing-room scenery, which the play-writers call ‘petticoat interest.’ But when a man allows himself to be selfish, he deserves to be punished. Henry Thornhill disdains Bellevue and comfort, and insists on misery and bivouacs.” “Ah, my dear Tracey,” said I, mindful of my promise to Clara, “Henry Thornhill is much too fine a young fellow to be wasted upon ignoble slaughter, and still more ignoble agues and marsh fevers. I hope you do not intend to gratify his preposterous desire to plant laurels at the other end of the world, and on soil in which it may be reasonably doubted whether any laurels will grow——” Tracey’s brow became clouded. He threw himself on a seat niched into the recess of a lattice window, looked out at first abstractedly, and then, as the cloud left his brow, observantly.