Some little time afterwards, when, seated next to Lady Gertrude, I was talking to her of the Grays, I observed Tracey take aside the Painter, and retire with him into the adjoining colonnade. They were not long absent. When they returned, Bourke’s face, usually serious, was joyous and elated. In a few moments, with all his Irish warmth of heart, he burst forth with the announcement of the new obligations he owed to Sir Percival Tracey. “I have always said,” exclaimed he, “that, give me an opening and I will find or make my way. I have the opening now; you shall see!” We all poured our congratulations upon the young enthusiast, except Henry Thornhill, and his brow was shaded and his lip quivered. Clara, watching him, curbed her own friendly words to the artist, and, drawing to her husband’s side, placed her hand tenderly on his shoulder. “Pish! do leave me alone,” muttered the ungracious churl. “See,” whispered Percival to me, “what a brute that fine young fellow would become if we insisted on making him happy our own way, and saving him from the chance of being shot!” Therewith rising, he gently led away Clara, to whose soft eyes tears had rushed; and looking back to Henry, whose head was bended over a volume of ‘The Wellington Despatches,’ said in his ear, half-fondly, half-reproachfully, “Poor young fool! how bitterly you will repent every word, every look of unkindness to her, when—when she is no more at your side to pardon you!” That night it was long before I slept. I pleased myself with what is now grown to me a rare amusement—viz., the laying out plans for the morrow. This holiday, with Tracey all to myself; this summer sail on the seas; this interval of golden idlesse, refined by intercourse with so serene an intelligence, and on subjects so little broached in the world of cities, fascinated my imagination; and I revolved a hundred questions it would be delightful to raise, a hundred problems it would be impossible to solve. Though my life has been a busy one, I believe that constitutionally I am one of the most indolent men alive. To lie on the grass in summer noons under breathless trees, to glide over smooth waters, and watch the still shadows on tranquil shores, is happiness to me. I need then no books—then, no companion. But if to that happiness in the mere luxury of repose, I may add another happiness of a higher nature, it is in converse with some one friend, upon subjects remote from the practical work-day world,—subjects akin less to our active thoughts than to our dreamlike reveries,—subjects conjectural, speculative, fantastic, embracing not positive opinions—for opinions are things combative and disputatious—but rather those queries and guesses which start up from the farthest border-land of our reason, and lose themselves in air as we attempt to chase and seize them.