Although there were many things unpleasant in his situation; although the conduct of his father towards himself had sent him back, as usual, with unpleasant memories fresh upon him, yet there was something now in the storehouse of remembrance which made up for all. There was a drop of that elixir cast into his cup, which is described by one of the greatest painters of human nature that ever lived, Le Sage, as giving flavour and sweetness to the sourest, the bitterest, or the most insipid cup. He had loved and was beloved; and when he looked back upon the last short month, it seemed as if the whole of the rest of life was as nothing compared with what he had done, enjoyed, and suffered in that brief space. The memory thereof afforded him sufficient matter to occupy his mind till he reached the university, and then it still remained, a comfort, a consolation, a hope, a joy. It was to him as an angel stretching out one hand towards the future and the other towards the past, and scattering flowers over both. We will not dwell upon the passing of a week or two, on the prosecution of his academical studies, on the society that he kept, or the amusements which the narrow means his father afforded him enabled him to seek. We are coming now to the more bustling and active scenes of the drama, and we must not pause upon many interludes. Time slipped by quietly. Charles kept his word faithfully to Mrs. Effingham; he wrote not to Lucy. He sent her even no message when he wrote to his mother, though he never failed to mention her in his letters with terms which he knew would induce Lady Tyrrell to repeat them to Lucy herself, and would show to her whom he loved how deeply he still loved her. In so writing, to say the truth, there was perhaps a greater pleasure than there even would have been in writing to herself. There was something exciting and doubly interesting in the shadowing forth, under anything that suggested itself, those feelings, wishes, hopes, and memories which he was forbidden to express more plainly. He now mentioned to his mother having met with some flower, or heard some song that recalled the sweet moments passed in the society of Lucy Effingham; it was now a picture he had bought which he longed to show her; it was now a book that he had read which would give her pleasure to read also; it was something now that she had said which he remembered and applied under new circumstances. He certainly thought of Lady Tyrrell when he wrote those letters to her; but neither Lady Tyrrell, nor himself, nor Lucy Effingham could doubt that he thought of the latter, too, at every line he wrote. Lady Tyrrell could not help soon perceiving that her son was really, and not nominally, in love with Lucy Effingham; but, between a mother's fondness and a woman's clear-sightedness, she had discovered something long before which gave her comfort and satisfaction; it was, that Lucy Effingham was not quite indifferent to her son.