"I did not well know what to say or do, Mr. Blount's good-bye came so suddenly. My making a difficulty about walking home with Mr. Marston would to him, who knew nothing of what had passed at Malory, have appeared an unaccountable affectation of prudery. I asked Mr. Blount whether he intended staying any time. He answered, 'Half an hour at least; and if the poor boy wishes it, I shall stay an hour,' he added. "Mr. Marston, who, I am sure, perfectly understood me, did not say a word. I had only to make the best of an uncomfortable situation, and, very nervous, I nodded and smiled my farewell to Mr. Blount, and set out on my homeward march with Mr. Marston. "I need not have been in such a panic--it was very soon perfectly plain that Mr. Marston did not intend treating me to any heroics. "'I don't know any one in the world I have a much higher opinion of than Mr. Blount,' he said; 'but I do think it a great mercy to get away from him a little on Sundays; I can't talk to him in his own way, and I turn simply into a Trappist--I become, I mean, perfectly dumb.' "I agreed, but said that I had such a regard for Mr. Blount that I could not bring myself to vex him. "'That is my rule also,' he said, 'only I carry it a little further, ever since I received my education,' he smiled, darkly; 'that is, since I begun to suffer, about three years ago, I have learned to practise it with all my friends. You would not believe what constraint I often place upon myself to avoid saying that which is in my heart and next my lips, but which I fear--I fear with too good reason--might not be liked by others. There was a time, I daresay, when Hamlet blurted out everything that came into his mind, before he learned in the school of sorrow to say, "But break my heart, for I must hold my tongue."' "He looked very expressively, and I thought I knew perfectly what he meant, and that if by any blunder I happened to say a foolish thing, I might find myself, before I knew where I was, in the midst of a conversation as wild as that of the wood of Plas Ylwd. "In reply to this I said, not very adroitly: "And what a beautiful play _Hamlet_ is! I have been trying to copy Retsch's outline, but I have made such a failure. The faces are so fine and forcible, and the expression of the hands is so wonderful, and my hands are so tame and clumsy; I can do nothing but the ghost, and that is because he is the only absurd figure in the series." "'Yes,' he acquiesced, 'like a thing in an _opera bouffe_.' "I could perceive very plainly that my rather precipitate and incoherent excursion into Retsch's outlines, into which he had followed me with the best grace he could, had wounded him. It was equally plain, however, that he was in good faith practising the rule he had just now mentioned, and was by no means the insolent and overbearing suitor he had shown himself in that scene, now removed alike by time and distance, in which I had before seen him.