"Of course," Miss Farringdon continued, "you will take his place, should he be--as I fear is inevitable--unable to resume work at the Osierfield; and I have such a high opinion of you, Christopher, that I have no doubt you will do your uncle's work as well as he has done it, and there could not be higher praise. Nevertheless, it saddens me to know that another of the old landmarks has been swept away, and that now I only am left of what used to be the Osierfield forty years ago. The work may be done as well by the new hands and brains as by the old ones; but after one has crossed the summit of the mountain and begun to go downhill, it is sorry work exchanging old lamps for new. The new lamps may give brighter light, perchance; but their light is too strong for tired old eyes; and we grow homesick for the things to which we are accustomed." And Miss Farringdon took off her spectacles and wiped them. There was silence for a few seconds, while Christopher manfully struggled with his feelings and Miss Maria decorously gave vent to hers. Christopher was vexed with himself for so nearly breaking down before Elisabeth, and throwing the shadow of his sorrow across the sunshine of her path. He did not know that the mother-heart in her was yearning over him with a tenderness almost too powerful to be resisted, and that his weakness was constraining her as his strength had never done. He was rather surprised that she did not speak to him; but with the patient simplicity of a strong man he accepted her behaviour without questioning it. Her mere presence in the room somehow changed everything, and made him feel that no world which contained Elisabeth could ever be an entirely sorrowful world. Of course he knew nothing about the new Christopher which had suddenly arisen above Elisabeth's horizon; he was far too masculine to understand that his own pathos could be pathetic, or his own suffering dramatic. It is only women--or men who have much of the woman in their composition--who can say: "Here I and sorrow sit, This is my throne; let kings come bow to it." The thoroughly manly man is incapable of seeing the picturesque effect of his own misery.