Of what was it that he thought? Was it of his mother? No! Time had healed the only wound that fate, within his own memory, had inflicted on him; and his thoughts were of no external kind whatever: It was that _the spirit of the soul_ then, for the first time, made her voice heard strongly. She might have whispered before, but now she spoke aloud. It was as a warning at the gates of life: it was as if some hand, for a moment, drew back the glittering veil with which pale reality covers her wrinkled front, and had shewn him, instead of the bright young features he expected to see, nothing but deformity and age. Unhappy is it--at the time, most unhappy--for the man, in whose mind age and youth can change places, even for an hour. God wills us, while we are young, to view things youngly, and when the thoughts of age force themselves upon us in youth, we are like the living clasped in the cold arms of the dead. Such, then, were the sensations of Morley Ernstein, as he sat in the house of his fathers, master thereof, master of himself, master of fortune, station, youth, strength, and expectation! Oh, how he had longed for that hour! What bright visions had risen before his eyes, of enjoyment to come! How he had strode in imagination over every field--how he had visited every cottage--how he had consoled the old servants for his long absence--how he had made in fancy every change that he had devised in boyhood. He had dreamed bright dreams, though most innocent ones; and now the dream was accomplished--he was there, with nothing but his own will to control him in any act! Yes, the dream was accomplished, but it was ended too! Whenever we grasp life's flowers with too hot a hand, they are sure to wither almost ere they reach our bosom. He had not felt as much joy as he had expected; he had been happy certainly, but he had discovered that even happiness is not the bright thing he had thought it; and now he sat and mused, the spirit of the soul seeming to tell him, that thus he would still find it throughout the whole of life; that there is a rich ingredient wanting in the cup of mortal joy which never can be found on earth.