The happy constitution which had empowered the young artist to contend successfully with fever and phlebotomy, soon enabled him to exchange his quarters under the Captain's roof for those he had occupied so short a time in the cottage of Elsie. This was a change he made with no little reluctance; for, independent of the superior comfort of Gilbert's Folly, there was a charm in the society of the Captain's daughter, which, with all the drawback resulting from the addition of the Captain's company, was not to be replaced by the attractions of the melancholy widow. Nevertheless, a consciousness that his presence at the mansion, however welcome to its inmates, was, at best, an intrusion, soon forced itself upon his mind; he felt that it was highly improper to take advantage of the affection of a whimsical old man, and the kindness of a solitary and almost unprotected girl; and accordingly he revealed the determination he had made to leave them, upon the third visit he made Miss Loring. His resolution was however combated with such violent hostility on the part of the veteran, who commonly devoted three-fourths of his time to expatiating upon the subjects of the three great pictures, and with such agreeable dissuasives on that of the lady, that his resolves easily melted away, and his sojourn was prolonged for a week or more beyond the period of his first visit. At last, however, he grew ashamed of his effeminate abandonment to an enjoyment which he had no right to consider his own; and one morning, having surveyed himself in the glass, and discovered with peculiar satisfaction, that his cheek-bones were burying themselves in their former insignificance, and that his eyes were twinkling again with their natural sunshine, he took the sudden resolution of retreating to the Traveller's Rest that day; and this design, maugre all the furious opposition of the Captain, he was strengthened to put into immediate execution, by the frankly-expressed consent of his fair governor. "Yes, I will go," he soliloquized, in his chamber, to which he had ascended for the purpose of collecting his scattered moveables; "it is plain enough, the girl is vastly delighted to get rid of me. 'You are now well enough to be released from captivity.' These were her very words; and she smiled as she uttered them, as if my discharge were a deliverance to herself!--Well,--and why should it not be?" he muttered, after a pause; "Why should my presence be a pleasure to her? and why should my departure afflict her? and why should I care whether she be pleased or not? A girl engaged,--betrothed,--and betrothed to a Falconer! Tush, I am a fool. I was a fool to come hither, too. The devil take the wars, and the king's commission into the bargain. I will leave the place--I would my arm were but sound, and I would leave it to-morrow,--ay, I vow I would! 'Oh, the bonny bright island.'--