“Failings! perhaps,” said he, dubiously; “but they are, after all, mere weaknesses,—such as a liking for splendor, a love of luxury generally, a taste for profusion, a sort of regal profusion in daily life, which occasionally jars with my circumstances, making me—not irritable, I am never irritable—but low-spirited and depressed.”
“Then, from what you have told me, I think I'd better say to Mrs. Butler that there 's an angel waiting outside who is most anxious to make her acquaintance.”
“Do so; and add that he 'll fold his wings, and sit on this stone till you come to fetch him.”
“Au revoir, Gabriel, then,” said she, passing in at the wicket, and taking her way through the little garden.
Maitland sat discussing in his own mind the problem how far Alcibiades was right or wrong in endeavoring to divert the world from any criticism of himself by a certain alteration in his dog's tail, rather opining that, in our day at least, the wiser course would have been to avoid all comment whatsoever,—the imputation of an eccentricity being only second to the accusation of a crime. With the Greeks of that day the false scent was probably a success; with the English of ours, the real wisdom is not to be hunted. “Oh, if it were all to be done again, how very differently I should do it!”
“Indeed, and in what respect?” said a voice behind his shoulder. He looked up, and saw Beck Graham gazing on him with something of interest in her expression. “How so?” cried she, again. Not in the slightest degree discomposed or flurried, he lay lazily back on the sward, and drawing his hand over his eyes to shade them from the sun, said, in a half-languid, weary tone, “If it were to do again, I 'd go in for happiness.”
“What do you mean by happiness?”
“What we all mean by it: an organized selfishness, that draws a close cordon round our home, and takes care to keep out, so far as possible, duns, bores, fevers, and fashionable acquaintances. By the way, is your visit ended, or will she see me?”
“Not to-day. She hopes to-morrow to be able. She asks if you are of the Maitlands of Gillie—Gillie—not 'crankie,' but a sound like it,—and if your mother's name was Janet.”
“And I trust, from the little you know of me, you assured her it could not be,” said he, calmly.