Thus years rolled on, and during the frequent and long-continued absence of my cousin, his children learned to love me with a strong affection; and, taking a model from the domestic circle of a neighbouring family, my imagination pictured for me a future fate like that of a person whom I frequently beheld situated in very similar circumstances. He was at this time a man well advanced in life, and, like me, the cousin of the lord of the castle. But he had gained considerable renown in arms. The father of the family, who was now withheld from active service by the effects of severe wounds, confided to him the leading of his retainers; the children clung to him with reverence and affection; and the two eldest were, even at that very time, trying their first arms under the sword of their veteran cousin. He possessed no property, he sought none; but he lived with people who reverenced and loved him: he had his own honoured seat by the hall fire; his tales were listened to and sought for with delight by all, and his counsel or assistance was asked by the father when any matter of real danger or difficulty arose, by the elder sons in the mysteries of the chase or the mew, and by the younger children in any of the small sorrows or difficulties which were to them as important as wars or sieges. I fancied myself, I say, like him; winning renown in arms, gaining a station by my own deeds, and seeing the young beings that I loved so tenderly as babes, grow up round me as round an elder brother. But oh, how vainly, how youthfully did I calculate! My cousin, when he returned to the castle after any of his long absences, had now become harsh and stern. Me he treated with utter neglect and coldness; he saw me dine at his table without addressing a word to me; he met me without any kind gratulation: he heard me wish him joy of his return with scarcely an answering word. When he looked at me it was coldly; and I could not but feel that I was a burden to him. When I was about fifteen years of age, he one morning took the pains to ask what progress I had made in my studies. The question was addressed to Monsieur la Tour, but in my presence. The clergyman replied with high praise; higher, I believe, than I deserved; and the baron's reply was, "Don't you think you can contrive to make a priest of him, La Tour?" My blood boiled, I confess, but my cousin turned away without waiting for any reply, having satisfied himself that, by the question he had asked and the suggestion he had made, he quite fulfilled his duty towards me, at least for the time. I thought, however, of the days when I had sat upon his knee, and when he had said that he would make a little hero of me: that I should be a Bayard or a Du Guesclin.