"Well, but Charles," said Sir John "you must positively assume a little dejection, to diversify the business. It will give interest to your countenance and pathos to your manner, and tenderness to your accent. And you must forget all attentions, and neglect all civilities. And you must appear absent, and _distrait_ and _reveur_; especially while your fate hangs in some suspense. And you must read Petrarch, and repeat Tibullus, and write sonnets. And when you are spoken to, you must not listen. And you must wander in the grove by moonshine, and talk to the Oreads, and the Dryads, and the Naiads; oh no, unfortunately, I am afraid there are no Naiads within hearing. You must make the woods vocal with the name of Lucilla; luckily 'tis such a poetical name that Echo won't be ashamed to repeat it. I have gone through it all, Charles, and know every highway and byway in the map of love. I will, however, be serious for one moment, and tell you for your comfort, that though at your age I was full as much in for it as you are now, yet after ten years' union, Lady Belfield has enabled me to declare "How much the wife is dearer than the bride." A tear glistened in her soft eyes, at this tender compliment. Just at that moment, Lucilla happened to cross the lawn at a distance. At sight of her, I could not, as I pointed to her, forbear exclaiming in the words of Sir John's favorite poet, There doth beauty dwell, There most conspicuous, e'en in outward shape, Where dawns the high expression of a MIND. "This is very fine," said Sir John, sarcastically; "I admire all you young enthusiastic philosophers, with your intellectual refinement. You pretend to be captivated only with _mind_. I observe, however, that previous to your raptures, you always take care to get this mind lodged in a fair and youthful form. This mental beauty is always prudently enshrined in some elegant corporeal frame, before it is worshiped. I should be glad to see some of these intellectual adorers in love with the mind of an old or ugly woman. I never heard any of you fall into ecstasies in descanting on the mind of your grandmother." After some further irony, they left me to indulge my meditations, in the nature of which a single hour had made so pleasant a revolution. CHAPTER XXI. The conversation of two men bred at the same school or college, when they happen to meet afterward, is commonly uninteresting, not to say tiresome, to a third person, as involving local circumstances in which he has no concern. But this was not always the case since the meeting of my two friends. Something was generally to be gained by their communications even on these unpromising topics.