Dr. Lendrick and his son still lingered at the Swan's Nest after Lucy's departure for the Priory. Lendrick, with many things to arrange and prepare for his coming voyage, was still so overcome by the thought of breaking up his home and parting from his children, that he could not address his mind to anything like business. He would wander about for hours through the garden and the shrubberies, taking leave, as he called it, of his dear plants and flowers, and come back to the house distressed and miserable. Often and often would he declare to Sir Brook, who was his guest, that the struggle was too much for him. “I never was a man of ardor or energy, and it is not now, when I have passed the middle term of life, that I am to hope for that spring and elasticity which were denied to my youth. Better for me send for Lucy, and stay where I am; nowhere shall I be so happy again.” Then would come the sudden thought that all this was mere selfishness, that in this life of inaction and indolence he was making no provision for that dear girl be loved so well. Whatever hopes the reconciliation with his father might lead to, would of course be utterly scattered to the winds by an act so full of disobedience as this. “It is true,” thought he, “I may fail abroad as I have failed at home. Success and I are scarcely on speaking terms,--but the grandfather cannot leave the granddaughter whom he has taken from her home, totally uncared and unprovided for.” As for young Tom, Sir Brook had pledged himself to-take care of him. It was a vague expression enough; it might mean anything, everything, or nothing. Sir Brook Fossbrooke had certainly, in worldly parlance, not taken very good care of himself,--far from it; he had squandered and made away with two large estates and an immense sum in ready money. It was true he had friends everywhere,--some of them very great people with abundant influence, and well able to help those they cared for; but Fossbrooke was not one of those who ask; and the world has not yet come to the millennial beatitude in which one's friends importune them with inquiries how they are to be helped, what and where they wish for.