It was a bright, fresh morning, and John Temple enjoyed the walk. The waving mazes of uncut corn; the hedge-rows scented with the meadow-sweet; the cattle standing under the trees, made to his mind a pleasant picture.
“After all, the country is charming,” he said, raising his head as though more freely to inhale the air, and looking round at the green and fertile landscape.
“Do you think you would not tire of it?” asked the old man by his side, lifting his sad eyes and looking steadfastly at his nephew’s good-looking face. He was wondering what his life had been; how the last decade of his thirty years had passed. Not in riotous living he told himself, for John Temple’s features bore no marks of dissipation nor sin. His eyes were clear and resolute, his whole bearing that of a man who had led at least a fairly good life.
“He looks honest,” thought the squire, and then he sighed, thinking of his dead boy, and all the fond hopes which lay buried in his untimely grave.
“I might tire of it,” answered John, smiling in reply to his uncle’s question, “if I never had any change, for I think we all want change. It is human nature, part of our heritage, to desire it.”
Again the old man sighed.
“You must marry now, John,” he said, and as he spoke a flush rose to his nephew’s face.
“I think not,” he answered.
“You will think differently I hope, some day,” continued the squire. “But here we are at Woodside; it is a pretty spot.”
It was indeed a pretty spot; a long, low, white house, standing amid a large old-fashioned garden, with trim box-borders, and fruit trees laden with their ripening crops. They approached the house from the front, but at the rear the squire pointed out with some pardonable pride the new and expensive outbuildings.