Whether tempted by the fare, or anxious to gratify the hospitable wishes of his host, Glencore ate heartily, and drank what for his abstemious habit was freely, and, so far as a more genial air and a more ready smile went, fully justified Harcourt's anticipations. “By Jove! you 're more like yourself than I have seen you this many a day,” said the Colonel, as they drew their chairs towards the fire, and sat with that now banished, but ever to be regretted, little spider-table, that once emblematized after-dinner blessedness, between them. “This reminds one of long ago, Glencore, and I don't see why we cannot bring to the hour some of the cheerfulness that we once boasted.” A faint, very faint smile, with more of sorrow than joy in it, was the other's only reply. “Look at the thing this way, Glencore,” said Harcourt, eagerly. “So long as a man has, either by his fortune or by his personal qualities, the means of benefiting others, there is a downright selfishness in shutting himself up in his sorrow, and saying to the world, 'My own griefs are enough for me; I 'll take no care or share in yours.' Now, there never was a fellow with less of this selfishness than you--” “Do not speak to me of what I was, my dear friend. There's not a plank of the old craft remaining. The name alone lingers, and even that will soon be extinct.” “So, then, you still hold to this stern resolution? Shall I tell you what I think of it?” “Perhaps you had better not do so,” said Glencore, sternly. “By Jove! then, I will, just for that menace,” said Harcourt. “I said, 'This is vengeance on Glencore's part.'” “To whom, sir, did you make this remark?” “To myself, of course. I never alluded to the matter to any other; never.” “So far, well,” said Glencore, solemnly; “for had you done so, we had never exchanged words again!” “My dear fellow,” said Harcourt, laying his hand affectionately on the other's, “I can well imagine the price a sensitive nature like yours must pay for the friendship of one so little gifted with tact as I am. But remember always that there's this advantage in the intercourse: you can afford to hear and bear things from a man of _my_ stamp, that would be outrages from perhaps the lips of a brother. As Upton, in one of his bland moments, once said to me, 'Fellows like you, Harcourt, are the bitters of the human pharmacopoeia,--somewhat hard to take, but very wholesome when you're once swallowed.'”