A window to the south presents some slight traces of human existence, not discernible from any of the others: a curious bridge, roughly constructed, its date unknown, and crossing a spot where there is now no water; and a single chimney, with its blue smoke, peeping from the cleft of a rock, within which is concealed the little habitation to which it belongs. The study itself, from which these prospects are enjoyed, contains an excellent library: it opens with French windows on the lawn, and communicates with the drawing-room by means of a green-house in the corridor form, in imitation of that at Lodore, from which it had been stored with choice plants. Beyond the drawing-room, in the old part of the building, is situated a comfortable dining-room. To this literary Eden, our hero each day repaired, reaping from his visits all the advantages which might be expected. Thus did matters proceed for about four years, except that we omitted to mention that he spent all periods of Mrs. Montgomery's absence from Lodore House entirely at Mr. Jackson's dwelling, by that gentleman's particular request. Edmund had become the consolation of his worthy preceptor's lonely hours, the centre of his affections. Those had, indeed, no other object. Within the first three years of Mr. Jackson's marriage, he had lost a wife to whom he had been attached from early youth; and, more recently, the measles had robbed him of both the boys she had left him. CHAPTER XII. "Did jealous hate inspire thee?" Meanwhile the unamiable Henry, every time he returned from his school for the vacations, was filled with fresh envy and hatred on beholding Edmund more and more established in the rank of a child of the family, and more and more beloved by every one; while he, Henry, felt as if at enmity with the whole world, merely because his own unworthy nature could not divest itself of an instinctive consciousness, that he did not deserve to be loved. He, however, explained the business very differently: he persuaded himself that the beggar-brat (as he called Edmund in his own thoughts, for Mrs. Montgomery would not suffer him to do so to be heard) had got into his place, and deprived him of every body's regard. As soon as Mrs. Montgomery had been aware of her nephew's lodging, she had had him removed to one more eligible; but his low habits were too strongly confirmed to be much amended by this salutary change. He still spent his leisure hours at the butcher's house, and carried thither the fruits of all his depredations, namely, the spoils of robbed orchards, and scaled poultry-yards. There the wife and daughter would first cook for him, and then, joining in the carousal, help to demolish. His rompings too, with Miss Betsy Park, for so was the butcher's daughter named, grew daily more frequent.