Mr. Philip De Lancaster had of late stepped a little out of his non-elastic character, and been rambling from the castle every forenoon between the hours of breakfast and dinner. Nobody was curious to trace him in these excursions, but it could not fail to be discovered, that his visits were to the Spanish lady at the abbey house of Penruth. To say that Philip was in love with Mrs. Owen might be to mistake a habit for a passion; he was in the habit of turning his poney’s head abbey-ward, as soon as he had sallied from the castle-gate, and poney was in the habit of going on without any turn at all till he stopped at the aforesaid abbey door. When Philip dismounted, Mrs. Owen’s lacquey was also in the habit of ushering him to his lady’s sitting-room, where he silently took his chair and his chance for being spoken to, when the lady was in the humour and at leisure to speak to him. The first remark, that had ever dropped from Mr. De Lancaster with respect to Philip’s absence, occurred in his discourse with the Wilsons about John’s education, and it so happened that Mrs. Owen in her tete à tete that very morning had been rather more disposed to extort a conversation than was usual with her, when the following very interesting dialogue ensued. I conclude, said the lady, that this extraordinary melancholy, which seems to hang eternally upon you, my good friend, can only be accounted for by your concern for Mrs. De Lancaster’s dismal state of health and spirits. Not at all, said Philip: that’s not it. What is it then? What in the name of wonder can it be? I can’t tell. It comes of its own accord. I don’t know how to believe you. There must be some cause: as sure as can be you have caught the hip of your hypochondriac wife. I have nothing to do with any hip of hers. I never go near her: that’s agreed between us. A happy release, if what I hear be true. Then you have no domestic troubles. None at all: quite free. Why then so gloomy? What annoys you, what possesses you so wholly, that you seem almost to have lost the very use of speech? Are you in love, my friend? Not with my wife. With any body else? With any body rather than with her. With me, for instance-- Oh, with you sooner than with any body. I visit nobody but you. True, but I thought you visited me from habit, not from liking. I like you very much. What shall I do to encrease your liking? Nothing. It encreases quite fast enough without your help. Bless me! That’s lucky; for to say the truth I have not been aware of it. But I am so surprised, and so flattered by it, that I would fain take some pains to cultivate so agreeable an impression. You need not. There’s no occasion to trouble yourself about it. Should not I contrive to make myself a little younger? I don’t wish it. A good deal handsomer? It is not possible. A great deal fairer? That would entirely spoil the beauty of your complexion.