To do good, to be kind, to be always cheerful, and to find their happiness in making ours--that was the proper thing, when I was young, for the rising generation of the better sex. Of our faults they must have no knowledge, but be as hard as possible upon their own; and in that particular they had every help from their own sex, whose time was ripening into criticism. Somehow or other they have changed all that, and flung themselves far into the opposite extreme.
Nothing could have made me dwell upon such little things, unless there had been one of them that was all the world to me. And while I was endeavouring to explain my sister to the clearest of my understanding, and blaming her for my failure, there must have been some other purpose behind, which was even more than brotherly. I was able to give very good advice to Jackson Stoneman, and he was quite right in adopting it; but that masterful inaction did not seem to suit my case. What might be going on even now--that was the great point for me to ascertain--in a matter beyond all discretion or cold comfort? Saturday was come; and I had been attending, with a grandeur of benevolence beyond all praise, to a love-affair deeply interesting, but in which you might call me a spectator only. Surely my own state of puzzle was enough, without trying to make dovetails of another pair.
Therefore, as soon as I had paid the men, at three o'clock that afternoon, which was the proper time, I saddled Old Joe, and without a word to Grace, who might think what she liked--let her mind her own affairs--off I set for St. Winifred's valley, where I knew an old shed that would entertain the horse. Let this old fellow get enough to eat, which he might pull from the hayrick, and all time, all friends, any fatherland would be just alike to him.
The days were drawing in very fast, and although the sun was on the shoulder of the hill, the sense of autumn and of night impending had taken the cheer and the warmth away, and saddened the dignity of the trees. My heart was beating fast, yet low, as I hurried down the slope from the lonely shed: fast with some foolish jerks of hope that any corner might show Dariel; yet low, as every corner went its way, without any sign of my darling. When I came to the ruined chapel, and peeped in, discovering only solitude, so flurried and tremulous was my condition--a most unusual state for me--that the Lesghian chief, if he saw me thus, might fairly think that some mischief from the old wound was at work inside. To recover myself and appear before him in a decent manner, I crossed the brook by a fallen tree, and wandered into the gloomy wood, where the old approach had lost its way; and here I lingered so long that dusk was deepening into darkness when I crossed the lonely stream again.
