“Distrust of myself as well as of the young ones, and trying not to forget that ‘one good custom may corrupt the world,’ so it may be as well that the pendulum should swing.”
“The pendulum, but not its axis—faith!”
“No; and of my boy’s mainspring of faith I do feel sure, and of his real upright steadiness.”
Lady Merrifield asked no more, but could wait.
But is not each generation a terra incognita to the last? A question which those feel most decidedly who stand on the border-land of both, with love and sympathy divided between the old and the new, clinging to the one, and fearing to alienate the other.
CHAPTER XIV. — BUTTERFLY’S NECTAR
If you heed my warning
It will save you much.—A. A. PROCTOR.
Clement Underwood was so much better as to be arrived at taking solitary rides and walks, these suiting him better than having companions, as he liked to go his own pace, and preferred silence. His sister had become much engrossed with her painting, and saw likewise that in this matter of exercise it was better to let him go his own way, and he declared that this time of thought and reading was an immense help to him, restoring that balance of life which he seemed to himself to have lost in the whirl of duties at St. Matthew’s after Felix’s death.
The shore, with the fresh, monotonous plash of the waves, when the tide served, was his favourite resort. He could stand still and look out over the expanse of ripples, or wander on, as he pleased, watching the sea-gulls float along—