“Revolving very high thoughts, reciting Edmund Burke's grandest perorations, and picturing very vividly before me the stunning triumphs of my own eloquence in the House, I plodded along, this time at least wonderfully indifferent to the scenery, and totally oblivious of where I was, when suddenly I perceived the great trees of Cro' Martin demesne shadowing the road I travelled, and saw that I was actually within a mile or so of the Castle! You, Harry, have contrived, some way or other, to have had a very rose-colored existence. I never heard that you had been jilted by a mistress, 'cut' by a once friend, or coldly received by the rich relative from whom you derived all your expectations. I am not even aware that the horse you backed ever went wrong, or that the bill you endorsed for another ever came back protested. In fact, you are what the world loves best, cherishes most, and lavishes all its blandishments on,--a devilish lucky fellow! Lucky in a capital fortune, abundance of good gifts, good looks, and an iron constitution,--one of those natures that can defy duns, blue-devils, and dyspepsia! Being, therefore, all this, well received everywhere, good company where pheasants are to be shot, Burgundy to be drunk, or young ladies to be married,--for you are a good shot, a good wine-taster, and a good _parti_,--with such gifts, I say, it will be very difficult to evoke your sympathy on the score of a misfortune which no effort of your imagination could compass. In fact, to ask you to feel what I did, as I found myself walking along _outside_ of those grounds _within_ which, but a few days back, I was the cherished visitor, and in sight of that smoke which denoted a hearth beside which I was never to sit again, and from which I was banished with something not very unlike disgrace! No sophistry I could summon was sufficient to assuage the poignancy of this sentiment. I feel certain that I could stand any amount of open public abuse, any known or unknown quantity of what is genteelly called 'slanging,' but I own to you that the bare thought of how my name might at that moment be mentioned beneath that roof, or even the very reserve that saved it from mention, caused me unutterable bitterness, and it was in a state of deep humiliation of spirit that I took the very first path that led across the fields and away from Cro' Martin.