“It would have been cruel to have done it.” “He had the habit, he tells me, in his days of palmiest prosperity, of going off by himself on foot, and wandering about for weeks, roughing it amongst all sorts of people,---gypsies, miners, charcoal-burners in the German forests, and such-like. He said, without something of this sort, he would have grown to believe that all the luxuries he lived amongst were _bona fide_ necessities of life. He was afraid too, he said, they would become part of him; for his theory is, never let your belongings master your own nature.” “There is great romance in such a man.” “Ah! there you have it, Lucy; that's the key to his whole temperament; and I 'd not be surprised if he had been crossed in some early love.” “Would that account for all his capricious ways?” said she, smiling. “My own experiences can tell me nothing; but I have a sister who could perhaps help me to an explanation. Eh, Lucy? What think you?” She tried to laugh off the theme, but the attempt only half succeeded, and she turned away her head to hide her confusion. Tom took her hand between his own, and patted it affectionately. “I want no confessions, my own dear Lucy,” said he, gently; “but if there is anything which, for your own happiness or for my honor, I ought to know, you will tell me of it, I am certain.” “There is nothing,” said she, with a faint gasp. “And you would tell me if there had been?” She nodded her head, but did not trust herself to speak. “And grandpapa, Lucy?” said he, trying to divert her thoughts from what he saw was oppressing her; “has he forgiven me yet, or does he still harp on about my presumption and self-sufficiency?” “He is more forgiving than you think, Tom,” said she, smiling. “I am not so sure of that. He wrote me a long letter some time back,--a sort of lecture on the faults and shortcomings of my disposition, in which he clearly showed that if I had all the gifts which my own self-confidence ascribed to me, and a score more that I never dreamed of, they would go for nothing,--absolutely nothing, so long as they were allied with my unparalleled--no, he did n't call it impudence, but something very near it. He told me that men of my stamp were like the people who traded on credit, and always cut a sorry figure when their accounts came to be audited; and, perhaps to stave off the hour of my bankruptcy, he enclosed me fifty pounds.” “So like him!” said she, proudly. “I suppose it was. Indeed, as I read his note, I thought I heard him talking it. There was an acrid flippancy about it that smacked of his very voice.” “Oh, Tom, I will not let you say that.” “I 'll think it all the same, Lucy. His letter brought him back to my mind so palpably that I thought I stood there before him on that morning when he delivered that memorable discourse on my character after luncheon.” “Did you reply to him?”