“I shall be very glad if you do; I would willingly give a guinea for that book.” “I’ll get it you for half the money; but I wish to heaven you would abandon all speculations about this man, who, after all, may not be the author of _Dion_.” “That I shall never do while my brain has power to speculate; so let us say no more about that, Uncle Dan.” It was rather late in the autumn when Eustace Thorburn made his researches at the British Museum. He obtained a few days’ holiday from his employer, and shared his Uncle Daniel’s lodgings in Great Ormond Street,--big rooms that had once been very grand and noble, and which, even now, had a pleasant airy aspect, and some remains of old-world splendour. The “few days” stretched themselves into a week before the young man had completed his studies, but at the end of the week he bade his kinsman good-bye, and went back to Berkshire, in no wise sorry to return to the park and forest, the winding river and odorous flower-garden of his new home. In no wise sorry? Could there be gladness more complete than that which filled his breast as he returned to the house he had learned to think of as a home? “M. de Bergerac’s book will be finished by and by, and he will have no further need of my services,” thought the returning traveller, as the sober goddess of common-sense projected her dark shadow athwart the sunlit realms of fancy. “I shall have to bid farewell to these new friends, and begin the world once more among strangers. I suppose that will be the story of my life. I may find friends; I may attach myself to a stranger’s house, until I almost fancy I have kindred and a home, like the rest of mankind; and then, just when I am happiest, my foolish dream will end all at once, and I shall have to begin life again. Oh, let me be patient when the trial comes! My life can never be so sad and dreary as _hers_ was.” Further reflection developed consoling ideas that brought back a happy smile to the traveller’s lips. “The _History of Superstition_ will not be finished for many a long year at its present rate of progress,” he said to himself. “I could wish for nothing better than to live for ever at the bailiff’s cottage, working for the kindest of employers.” He could not, indeed, imagine any state of happiness more perfect than that which he enjoyed in Theodore de Bergerac’s quiet home, after all due reservation had been made for that secret sorrow which was not altogether to be put away from his mind, even when his surroundings were brightest.