And then a turning to the ‘Ode to Immortality,’ for Wordsworth was our second leader, and we carried him on our tour as our one secular book, as Keble was our one religious book. We felt that the principal joy of all this beauty and delight was because there was something beyond. Presently Ellen said, prettily and shyly, ‘I am sure all this has opened much more to me than I ever thought of. I always used to be glad that we had no brothers, because our cousins were not always pleasant with us; but now I have learnt what valuable possessions they are,’ she added, with the sweetest, prettiest glance of her bright eyes. I ventured to say that I was glad she said they, and hoped it was a sign that she was finding out Clarence. ‘I have found out that I behaved so ill to him that I have been ashamed ever since to look at him or speak to him,’ said Ellen; ‘I long to ask his pardon, but I believe that would distress him more than anything.’ In which she was right; and I was able to tell her of the excuses there had been for the poor boy, how he had suffered, and how he had striven to conquer his failings; and she replied that the words ‘Judge not, that ye be not judged,’ always smote her with the remembrance of her disdainfully cantering past him. There was a tear on her eye-lashes, and it drew from me an apology for having brought a painful recollection into our bright day. ‘There must be shade to throw up the lights,’ she said, with her sparkling look. Was it shade that we never fell into one of these grave talks when Griffith was present, and that the slightest approach to them was sure to be turned by him into jest? We made our journey a little longer than we intended, crossing the moors so as to spend a Sunday at Exeter; but Frank Fordyce left us, not liking to give his father the entire duty of a third Sunday. Emily says she has come to have a superstition that extensions of original plans never turn out well, and certainly some of the charm of our journey departed with the merry, genial Parson Frank. Our mother was more anxious about Ellen, and put more restrictions on the lovers than when the father was present to sanction their doings. Griffith absolutely broke out against her in a way he had never ventured before, when she forbade Ellen’s riding with him when he wanted to hire a horse at Lydford and take an excursion on the moor before joining us at Okehampton. My father looked up, and said, ‘Griffith, I am surprised at you.’ He was constrained to mutter some apology, and I believe Ellen privately begged my mother’s pardon, owning her to have been quite right; but, by the dear girl, the wonderful cascade and narrow gorge were seen through swollen eyes. And poor Clarence must have had a fine time of it when Griffith had to ride off with him _faute de mieux_.