"Yes," he burst forth bitterly, with a fearful oath, "that is where my brother, the hardware merchant, lives! I tell you what, Harry, the very first thing that you are to do, as soon as you get a chance (if I don't live to do it myself), is to buy out his heirs, and raze that impertinent shanty to the ground. Just recollect that, will you? if I should happen to forget to put it into my will."
Bergan forebore to reply. He was learning that it was his wisest course--at least, so he thought--to take no notice of his uncle's bitter wrath and prejudice, since he could not sympathize with them. If his growing wish to possess Bergan Hall lay at the bottom of this silence, he was as yet unconscious of it.
His uncle,--accepting his forbearance as a sign of acquiescence to his wishes,--now, for the first time, really exerted himself for his entertainment. He talked with vivacity, humor, intelligence, and much of the tone and manner of his earlier days. His better self revived, for a time; and Bergan recognized something of the refined, cultured, accomplished gentleman, of his mother's descriptions, whose lightsome flow of spirits, gay sparkle of wit, and frank, cordial address, had made him the life and soul of the circle wherein he moved. It was mournful to see him under this pleasant transformation, and think of him in his usual aspect. Bergan could not but wonder how he had ever fallen to that lower level. He had not seen the easy descent from gayety to dissipation of his younger days; nor could he understand how naturally, with years, drinking in frivolous companionship had been exchanged for drinking alone, lavishness for parsimony, the gay, aimless life of a man of the world for the steady, energetic pursuit of one selfish, isolated, exclusive object.
They now reached the village. As they rode through its principal street, which was wide and handsomely shaded, the Major pointed to one and another of the houses along its sides, and quietly named men and women that had occupied them in years agone; either forgetting, or unaware, that most of them were now tenanting that one earthly house, of whose narrow accommodations every mortal must needs have some experience,--namely, the grave.