“And wish for nothing beyond? Do not wish Will to be other than he is?” “God forbid! You frighten me, sir.” “Frighten you! Be it so. Everyone who is happy should be frightened lest happiness fly away. Do your best to chain it, and you will, for you attach Duty to Happiness; and,” muttered Kenelm, as he turned from the shop, “Duty is sometimes not a rose-coloured tie, but a heavy iron-hued clog.” He strode on through the street towards the sign-post with “To Oxford” inscribed thereon. And whether he spoke literally of the knapsack, or metaphorically of duty, he murmured, as he strode,-- “A pedlar’s pack that bows the bearer down.” CHAPTER VII. KENELM might have reached Oxford that night, for he was a rapid and untirable pedestrian; but he halted a little after the moon rose, and laid himself down to rest beneath a new-mown haystack, not very far from the high road. He did not sleep. Meditatingly propped on his elbow, he said to himself,-- “It is long since I have wondered at nothing. I wonder now: can this be love,--really love,--unmistakably love? Pooh! it is impossible; the very last person in the world to be in love with. Let us reason upon it,--you, myself, and I. To begin with,--face! What is face? In a few years the most beautiful face may be very plain. Take the Venus at Florence. Animate her; see her ten years after; a chignon, front teeth (blue or artificially white), mottled complexion, double chin,--all that sort of plump prettiness goes into double chin. Face, bah! What man of sense--what pupil of Welby, the realist--can fall in love with a face? and even if I were simpleton enough to do so, pretty faces are as common as daisies. Cecilia Travers has more regular features; Jessie Wiles a richer colouring. I was not in love with them,--not a bit of it. Myself, you have nothing to say there. Well, then, mind? Talk of mind, indeed! a creature whose favourite companionship is that of butterflies, and who tells me that butterflies are the souls of infants unbaptized. What an article for ‘The Londoner,’ on the culture of young women! What a girl for Miss Garrett and Miss Emily Faithfull! Put aside Mind as we have done Face. What rests?--the Frenchman’s ideal of happy marriage? congenial circumstance of birth, fortune, tastes, habits. Worse still. Myself, answer honestly, are you not floored?”