“How often,” he exclaimed, giving audible utterance to his thoughts, “how often have I felt enthusiasm, amounting almost to a wild species of joy, when engaged in the work of war, and, of course, of destruction; and behold around me here, the labours of peace, the power of diffusing happiness to multitudes, lying neglected and forgotten.” “Do not say the work of destruction!” interrupted Julia, eagerly: “it never was in your nature, Edmund, to take pleasure in destroying the very worst of enemies! Say rather the work, the glorious, the indispensable work of protection; for of what avail would it be to spread prosperity over the face of the land if we suffer the foe to come in and lay our labours waste?” “True, Julia! most true!” replied Fitz-Ullin, delighted to have his favourite and habitual views of the subject thus revived. And as he spoke, he arose unconsciously, and, assuming a loftiness of carriage of which his figure was peculiarly susceptible, looked once more the hero—a character lately almost forgotten in that of the lover. “Seen in this light,” he said, “our duty to our country is also one of the most sacred of those which we owe to our kindred and dependants, taken too on its greatest, its noblest scale! The reflections, however, which the scene before us has awakened, have had their use; they have reminded me that, in the pride of performing a selected task, gratifying to our ambition or our vanity, we must not neglect the manifold and unpretending duties which surround our homes. You will allow,” he added, changing his manner from the grave to the sportive, “heroine as you are, Julia, that in the intervals of peace, at least, we ought to thatch the peasant’s hut, and see that he has grain to sow his fields—aye,” he continued, his voice and manner again becoming serious, “and a cheerful countenance when he reaps them, emanating from the consciousness that a liberal portion of all which the labour of his hands has caused the ground to bring forth shall be his own and his children’s. Nor is this more than just: large estates were small, indeed, in value to their luxurious possessor, did not the sweat of the brow of his fellow-creature render them productive.”