He hastened back to the castle; but he was assured at the gates by all the several persons who were standing there that no one had passed. On examining the doors of the garden, every one of them was found to be closed; and the Marquis of Masseran came to a conclusion, which was not pleasant for a man engaged in his peculiar pursuits, namely, that he was deceived and betrayed by some one of his own household. CHAPTER VII. The observation may seem trite, that to every period of life is assigned by the Almighty and Munificent Being, who at our creation adapted to each part of our material form the functions that it was to execute and the labours it was to sustain, either peculiar powers of endurance or counterbalancing feelings, which render the inevitable cares and sorrows apportioned to every epoch of our being lighter and more easy to be borne. The woes of childhood are, in themselves, speedily forgotten. The pains are soon succeeded by pleasures, and care, gnawing care, the rack of after-life, is then unknown. Boyhood, eager, enthusiastic, hopeful boyhood, the age of acquisition and expectation, though it may know from time to time a bitter pang, scarcely less in its degree than those that afflict mature life, has so many compensating enjoyments, its own sunshine is so bright, the light that shines upon it from the future is so dazzling, that the griefs serve but as a preparation and a warning, too little remembered when once they are past. Old age, with its decay, with the extinction of earthly hopes, with the prospect of the tomb, has also dulled sensibilities that allow us not to feel many of the more painful things of early years. The blunted edge of appetite may not give so keen a zest to pleasure; but the apathy which accompanies it extends to griefs as well as joys, and, if wisely used, is one of the best preparations for a resignation of that state of being which we have tried in the balance of experience and have found wanting; wanting in all that can satisfy a high and ethereal spirit; wanting in all things but its grand purpose of trial for a life to come. But, besides all this, unto that period of old age, thus prepared and admonished for another state, God himself has also given comfort and consolation, a promise and a hope: a promise brighter than all the promises of youth, a hope brighter than all those that have withered away upon our path of life.