"Perhaps he will let you come back to London with us," said Fred. She said she hoped so; and then, accompanied by her lover and her aunt, she travelled to Parksides to learn her fate. CHAPTER XII. A LITTLE PARTY IN CAPTAIN ABLEWHITE'S ROOMS. In his vague allusions to a future carriage, and to his becoming, in course of time, as rich as the Rothschilds, Jeremiah Pamflett built, as he supposed, upon a very solid foundation. So have other men--for instance, Mr. Lethbridge; but in the indulgence of his day-dreams Uncle Leth built his castles in the air, and extracted nothing but pure pleasure from them; intangible as they were, they invariably left a sweet taste in the mouth. It is to be doubted whether he really ever seriously inquired into their composition; he simply built them as he walked along, blind and deaf to the sterner realities of life by which he was surrounded, saw them grow under his magic touch, filled them with fair forms, and smiled gratefully and pensively as they faded away. He was, of course, a most unpractical being, otherwise he would occasionally have built a castle of terrors, peopled by unpleasant creatures, upon whose faces reigned frowns instead of smiles. Wise men, becoming acquainted with his imaginings, would have shaken their heads and cast pitying looks upon him; some even would have questioned his sanity; but it is by no means certain whether Uncle Leth was not wiser than they. Life is short, and, granted that a man performs his duties with a fair amount of conscientiousness, the next and altogether the wisest thing is to extract from life as much innocent enjoyment of one's days as opportunity affords. And whether that opportunity be upon the surface, for all men to see and understand, or be delved for in airy depths, or climbed up to in airy heights, is of little matter so that the good end is reached. From these brief speculations it may be inferred that Jeremiah Pamflett had his day-dreams as well as Uncle Leth, and from our knowledge of their characters it may be judged that between the day-dreams of the one and the other there was a wide gulf. Uncle Leth's day-dreams brought happiness to all, and his best sense of enjoyment was derived from the blessings he shed around him. Jeremiah's day-dreams brought happiness to one--himself; and his best sense of enjoyment was derived from the wretchedness and misery the result he aimed at and the road he was treading could not fail to produce.