CHAPTER XXII.
AN ADVERTISEMENT
Chill was the night. The slight motion of the air was against them, and made a cutting breeze as they drove on. The gentleman who sat beside him in a huge cloak and fur cap, with several yards of cashmere swathing his throat and chin and chops, was taciturn, except when he offered William a cigar.
The cold, dark, and solitude helped his depression—and longing to see Dr. Sprague, to whom, in his helplessness, he looked for practical counsel. The way seemed more than usually long. There was one conclusion clearly fixed in the chaos of his thoughts. He had done with dependence. No matter to what level it might reduce him, he would earn his own bread. He was leaving Gilroyd Hall behind him, and all its dreams, to be dreamed no more. Perhaps there was in the surrounding gloom that romantic vista, which youth in its irrepressible hopefulness will open for itself. And William Maubray in the filmy perspective saw a shadow of himself as he would be a few years hence—wealthy, famous, the outcast restored, with the lawn and the chestnuts about him, and pretty old Gilroyd spreading its faint crimson gables and glittering window-frames behind, and old Aunt Dinah, and another form in the foreground, all smiles and tears, and welcome.
Poor fellow! He knows not how few succeed—how long it takes to make a fortune—how the process transforms, and how seldom that kind of gilding touches any but white heads, and when the sun is near its setting, and all the old things past or passing away.
In the morning William Maubray presented himself before Dr. Sprague, who asked him briskly—“How is Miss Perfect?”
“Quite well, Sir, thank you; but—but something very serious has happened—very serious Sir, and I am very anxious to ask your advice.”
“Eh!” said the doctor; “wait a moment,” and he quaffed what remained of his cup of tea, for William had surprised him at breakfast. “Hey?—nothing very bad, I hope?” and the doctor put on his spectacles and looked in William’s face, as a physician does into that of a patient, to read something of his case in his countenance.
So William reported the great debate, and alas! the division on the question of holy orders, to all which the good little man listened, leaning back in his chair, with leg crossed and his chin raised.