It was some time before the Marquis came from his chamber; but when he did join the morning group, being ignorant of his son having mingled in what he would have deemed an heretical rite, he contemplated that son's renovated appearance with comfort unalloyed. He could not account to himself how such a change from weakness to activity; from despairing melancholy to gay cheerfulness; could have been wrought in the short space of two days; unless he might attribute it to the influence of the Saint, before whose defaced shrine he had knelt the preceding day, when he wandered alone to the solitary abbey. While he sat absorbed in these thoughts, Mrs. Coningsby mentioned to the younger part of the circle what had been discussed the evening before between herself and Mr. Athelstone. As the season approached when she and her family usually emigrated to Morewick-hall, she now proposed going earlier; and that the Marquis and his son, accompanied by her nephew, should make a tour with herself and her daughters to the interesting scenery in the neighbourhood. "You will find the Hall more befitting your reception than this lonely rock," continued she, addressing the Marquis; "but Lindisfarne is my uncle's Patmos; and when here, he loves to live like a hermit in his cell." "Rather," returned Ferdinand, with an answering smile: "like the privileged saint, emparadised with angels!" Louis guessed that one view in this scheme, was to take him out of the way of the Duke; and with something between a sigh and a smile, in thinking the precaution was no longer necessary; he warmly seconded his aunt's proposal. The eyes of Alice and of Ferdinand met in pleased sympathy. And Cornelia, addressing the Marquis, soon awakened an interest, in him, he did not expect to find in the projected excursion. She talked to him of Alnwick, of its chivalrous trophies; and of the stone chair of Hotspur, which still overlooks its battlements. She then passed to the Castle of Warkworth: and spoke of the anchorite's chapel, dug in the heart of its rock. As she discoursed of the hero of Halidown; and narrated the sorrows of his friend, the devout penitent of the hermitage, her share of the Percy blood glowed on her cheek and in her language: and the Marquis, aroused to all his military and religious enthusiasm, often grasped the cross of his sword, and mingled a prayer with the aspirations of a soldier.