"You think so much of Arden?"
"O yes, I am always thinking of it, always dreaming of it; the dear old rooms haunt me sleeping and waking. I suppose they are all altered now. I think it would almost break my heart to see them different."
"Do you know, I am scarcely in a position to understand that fervent love for one's birthplace. I may be said to have no birthplace myself. I was born in lodgings, or a furnished house—some temporary ark of that kind—the next thing to being born on board ship, and having Stepney for one's parish. My father was in a hard-working cavalry regiment, and the early days of my mother's married life were spent in perpetual wanderings. They separated, when I was about eight years old, for ever—a sad story, of course—something worse than incompatibility of temper on the husband's side; and from that time I never saw him, though he lived for some years. So, you see, the words 'home' and 'father' are for me very little more than sentimental abstractions. But with my mother I have been quite happy. She has indeed been the most devoted of women. She took a house at Eton when my brother and I were at school there, and superintended our home studies herself; and from that time to this she has watched my career with unchanging care. It is the old story of maternal kindness and filial shortcomings. I have given her a world of trouble; but I am not the less fond of her, or the less grateful to her." He stopped for a few moments, with something like a sigh, and then went on in a lighter tone: "You can see, however, that having no ancestral home of my own, I am hardly able to understand the depth of your feeling for Arden Court. There is an old place down in Kent, a fine old castellated mansion, built in the days of Edward VI., which is to be mine by-and-by; but I doubt if I shall ever value it as you do your old home. Perhaps I am wanting in the poetic feeling necessary for the appreciation of these things."
"O no, it is not that," Clarissa answered eagerly; "but the house you speak of will not have been your home. You won't have that dim, dreamy recollection of childhood spent in the old rooms; another life, the life of another being almost, it seems, as one looks back to it. I have only the faintest memory of my mother; but it is very sweet, and it is all associated with Arden Court. I cannot conjure up her image for a moment without that background. Yes, I do wish for fortune, for that one reason. I would give the world to win back Arden."
She was very much in earnest. Her cheeks flushed and her eyes brightened with those eager words. Never perhaps had she looked lovelier than at that moment. George Fairfax paused a little before he answered her, admiring the bright animated face; admiring her, he thought, very much as he might have admired some beautiful wayward child. And then he said gravely:
"It is dangerous to wish for anything so intensely. There are wishes the gratification whereof is fatal. There are a dozen old stories in the classics to show that; to say nothing of all those mediaeval legends in which Satan is complaisant to some eager wisher."
"But there is no chance of my wish being gratified. If I could work my fingers to the bone in the pursuit of art or literature, or any of the professions by which women win money, I should never earn the price of Arden; nor would that hateful Mr. Granger be disposed to sell a place which gives him his position in the county. And I suppose he is fond of it, after a fashion. He has spent a fortune upon improvements. Improvements!" repeated Clarissa contemptuously; "I daresay he has improved away the very spirit of the place."
"You cherish a strong dislike for this gentleman, it seems, Miss Lovel."
"I am wicked enough to dislike him for having robbed us of Arden. Of course you will say that any one else might have bought the place. But then I can only reply, that I should have disliked any other purchaser just the same; a little less though, perhaps, if he had been a member of some noble old family—a man with a great name. It would have been some consolation to think that Arden was promoted."
"I am afraid there is a leaven of good old Tory spirit in your composition,
Miss Lovel."