Now, if in a stage coach in the depth of winter, when three passengers are warm and snug, a fourth, all besnowed and frozen, descends from the outside and takes place amongst them, straightway all the three passengers shift their places, uneasily pull up their cloak collars, re-arrange their "comforters," feel indignantly a sensible loss of caloric--the intruder has at least made a sensation. But if you had all the snows of the Grampians in your heart, you might enter unnoticed: take care not to tread on the toes of your opposite neighbour, and not a soul is disturbed, not a "comforter" stirs an inch! I had not slept a wink, I had not even laid down all that night--the night in which I had said farewell to Fanny Trevanion--and the next morning, when the sun rose, I wandered out--where I know not. I have a dim recollection of long, gray, solitary streets--of the river, that seemed flowing in dull silence, away, far away, into some invisible eternity--trees and turf, and the gay voices of children. I must have gone from one end of the great Babel to the other: but my memory only became clear and distinct when I knocked, somewhere before noon, at the door of my father's house, and, passing heavily up the stairs, came into the drawing-room, which was the rendezvous of the little family; for, since we had been in London, my father had ceased to have his study apart, and contented himself with what he called "a corner"--a corner wide enough to contain two tables and a dumb waiter, with chairs _à discretion_ all littered with books. On the opposite side of this capacious corner sat my uncle, now nearly convalescent, and he was jotting down, in his stiff military hand, certain figures in a little red account-book--for you know already that my uncle Roland was, in his expenses, the most methodical of men. My father's face was more benign than usual, for, before him lay a proof--the first proof of his first work--his one work--the Great Book! Yes! it had positively found a press. And the first proof of your first work--ask any author what _that_ is! My mother was out, with the faithful Mrs Primmins, shopping or marketing no doubt; so, while the brothers were thus engaged, it was natural that my entrance should not make as much noise as if it had been a bomb, or a singer, or a clap of thunder, or the last "great novel of the season," or anything else that made a noise in those days. For what makes a noise now? Now, when the most astonishing thing of all is in our easy familiarity with things astounding--when we say, listlessly, "Another revolution at Paris," or, "By the bye, there is the deuce to do at Vienna!"--when De Joinville is catching fish in the ponds at Claremont, and you hardly turn back to look at Metternich on the pier at Brighton! My uncle nodded, and growled indistinctly; my father-- "Put aside his books; you have told us that already."