“You would be sorry? Not you!” mused the owner of Greenlands, as he walked slowly along the pathway that was so thickly strewn with dead leaves. “What does youth care how it tramples on the hopes of the old? When I refused the young bride my father and mother had chosen for me, and the alliance that had been the fairest dream they had woven for my future, what heed had I for the bitterness of their disappointment? The girl was pretty, and true and innocent, the daughter of a nobler house than mine, and the beloved of my kindred; but she was not----. Well; she was not Ægeria; she was not the mystic nymph of an enchanted grot; she was only an amiable young lady whom I had known from childhood, and about whom some mischievous demon had whispered into my ear the hateful fact that she was intended for me. I met my Ægeria after; and what came of it? Ah, me! that our brightest dreams must end so coldly! Numa’s nymph came to him only in the evening; and perhaps there are few men who could retain the fervour of their devotion for an Ægeria of all day long, and to-morrow, and the day after, and the day after that again. And then your mortal Ægeria has such a capacity for tears. A cold look, a hasty word, an accidental reference to the past, a hint of the uncertainty of the future--and the nymph is transformed into a waterfall. It is the fable of Hippocrene over again; but the fount is not so revivifying as that classic spring.” From thinking of his own past, Mr. Jerningham fell to musing upon Eustace Thorburn’s future. “He has that which all the lands of the Jerninghams could not buy for me, were I free to barter them,” he said to himself, bitterly: “youth and hope, youth and hope! Will he waste both treasures as I wasted them, I wonder? I think not. He has a thoughtfulness and gravity of expression that promise well for his future. And how his face brightens when he smiles! Was I ever so handsome as that, I wonder, in the days when the world called me--dangerous? No, never! At its best, my face wanted the earnestness that is the highest charm of his. Why do I compare myself with him? Because I have ended life just as he is beginning it, I suppose. The Alpha and the Omega meet, and Omega is jealous of his fair young rival. How little the landscape has changed since I was like that youngster yonder, newly returned from Oxford, with my head crammed with the big talk of Greek orators and the teaching of Greek sophists, eager to exhaust the delights of the universe in the shortest period possible; eager to gather all the flowers of youth and manhood, so as to leave the great Sahara of middle age without a blossom! And the flowers have been gathered and have faded, and have been thrown away, and the great Sahara remains entirely barren. No, not entirely; there is at least one solitary leaflet--one poor little pale blossom--my friendship for De Bergerac.”