find each for himself the primrose paths which suited him best; but he did not inquire into the primrose paths of others. He was so pleased with his own, so ready to tell everybody how delightful it was, how he enjoyed it, what pretty fancies it abounded in, and pleasant intercourse, and merry sunshiny ways. For Edward, who worked, he had the kindest toleration, as for an odd fellow who found his pleasure that way; and his mother, who sympathised with everybody, he regarded also with half-laughing, satisfied eyes as one whose peculiar inclinations laid her open to a charge of ‘humbug,’ which, perhaps, was not quite without foundation. Let everybody follow their own way: that was the way in which, of course, they found most pleasure, he said to himself, and in the lightness of his heart had no idea of any other rule. Cara had brought in a new and very pleasant element into his life; he liked to go to her and tell her what he was doing and receive that ready sympathy which was to him something like the perfume of flowers--a thing for which it was quite unnecessary to make any return, but which was delightful to receive, and which added a something more exquisite and delicate to the very atmosphere in which this young demi-god lived, caressed by gods and men. What more could he do for Cara or anyone but communicate his own satisfaction to her, make her a sharer in the pleasure he felt in himself and his life? He was ‘very fond’ of Cara. He would not, for a moment, have permitted anyone to take her companionship and sympathy from him. To tell Cara, was not that the first thing that occurred to him when anything happened, any new gratification or success? As for hearing from her in return what thoughts came into her little head, what happened in her quiet life--that did not occur to Oswald. To talk of himself seemed so much more natural and so much more interesting, to Cara as well as to himself. Was it not really so? He was a man, three-and-twenty, at the very most triumphant period of life, free to go anywhere he pleased, to do anything he liked, strong, clever, handsome, sufficiently rich. Could any circumstances be more delightful, more satisfactory? No woman, let alone a little girl, without freedom of action, could be so well off, so consciously at the ‘high top-gallant’ of mortal pleasantness. The sense of this suffused, so to speak, his whole being. It was not selfishness, any more than happiness is selfishness; there was even a kind of spontaneous unconscious gratitude in it for all the pleasant things in his lot.