We do not mean to say that all these ideas, or any one of them, presented themselves to the mind of Colonel Manners. Far be it from us to insinuate that he was foolish enough to give a vivid form and painful minuteness to the evils of a state that he believed he could not avoid. He struggled even against the general impression; but, as we have said, there were moments in his life--and this was one--when, notwithstanding reason and resolution, he would feel bitterly that it is sad and sorrowful to pass through life alone, to spend one's days in solitude, and to go down into the grave without a tie. The impression was so strongly raised, and clung so firmly to his mind, at the moment we speak of, that he took a turn of a hundred yards back upon the walk, to give the thoughts full range. Then remembering himself, he broke out into an involuntary exclamation of, "This is folly!" and turned quickly back to the house. In the breakfast-room he found Miss Falkland alone, and was not sorry so to find her; for there was in her conversation a pleasant and good-humoured sparkling, a frank and fearless liveliness, which amused and interested him. Besides, Colonel Manners was by no means a man to object to the society of a very beautiful girl: on that score he was quite fearless; for he had so guarded his heart by rampart, and bastion, and half-moon, that he feared no attack, either by siege or storm. The thing that he feared was, the sight of a state of happiness which he coveted, but did not hope for; and therefore he could enjoy the gay conversation and pleasing presence of Isadore Falkland without alloy, though he might apprehend that a lengthened stay, in the midst of a cheerful family circle, might deepen his regret at his own loneliness. Now, although the house of Mrs. Falkland, like most other houses of its date, had a certain ramblingness of construction, midway between the Gothic of Henry the Seventh's and the anomalous architecture of the nineteenth century, yet the rooms were sufficiently proximate to allow Colonel Manners to hear every now and then, as the servant opened and shut the door of the breakfast-room, the voice of Lord Dewry, in tones more sharp than was becoming. Nor was he slack in attributing the acerbity of the sounds he heard to their right cause; so that, as we have before shown, when Mrs. Falkland and her nephew spoke of the departure of the noble lord as a thing that had taken place in the ordinary course of affairs, Manners had very nearly smiled.