“I try to make it so, Sir, but I can’t succeed; if you had seen what it was, when I first bought it! a garden here, Sir; a copse there; a wilderness, God wot! at the back: and a row of chesnut trees in the front! You may conceive the consequence, Sir; I had not been long here, not two years, before my health was gone, Sir, gone--the d--d vegetable life sucked it out of me. The trees kept away all the air--I was nearly suffocated, without, at first, guessing the cause. But at length, though not till I had been withering away for five years, I discovered the origin of my malady. I went to work, Sir; I plucked up the cursed garden, I cut down the infernal chesnuts, I made a bowling green of the diabolical wilderness, but I fear it is too late. I am dying by inches,--have been dying ever since. The malaria has effectually tainted my constitution.” Here Mr. Courtland heaved a deep sigh, and shook his head with a most gloomy expression of countenance. “Indeed, Sir,” said Walter, “I should not, to look at you, imagine that you suffered under any complaint. You seem still the same picture of health, that my uncle describes you to have been when you knew him so many years ago.” “Yes, Sir, yes; the confounded malaria fixed the colour to my cheeks; the blood is stagnant, Sir. Would to God I could see myself a shade paler!--the blood does not flow; I am like a pool in a citizen’s garden, with a willow at each corner;--but a truce to my complaints. You see, Sir, I am no hypochondriac, as my fool of a doctor wants to persuade me: a hypochondriac shudders at every breath of air, trembles when a door is open, and looks upon a window as the entrance of death. But I, Sir, never can have enough air; thorough draught or east wind, it is all the same to me, so that I do but breathe. Is that like hypochondria?--pshaw! But tell me, young gentleman, about your uncle; is he quite well,--stout,--hearty,--does he breathe easily,--no oppression?” “Sir, he enjoys exceedingly good health: he did please himself with the hope that I should give him good tidings of yourself, and another of his old friends whom I accidentally saw yesterday,--Sir Peter Hales.” “Hales, Peter Hales!--ah! a clever little fellow that: how delighted Lester’s good heart will be to hear that little Peter is so improved;--no longer a dissolute, harum-scarum fellow, throwing away his money, and always in debt. No, no; a respectable steady character, an excellent manager, an active member of Parliament, domestic in private life,--Oh! a very worthy man, Sir, a very worthy man!” “He seems altered indeed, Sir,” said Walter, who was young enough in the world to be surprised at this eulogy; “but is still agreeable and fond of anecdote. He told me of his race with you for a thousand guineas.”