"You speak severely," said Clair.
"I speak with the courage which arises from my knowing, that, though you are thoughtless enough to err, you possess sufficient candour to bear reproof without reproach to him who offers it, and, however scrupulous I may in general be about offering advice, or venturing to find fault, I cannot allow such sentiments as you have just expressed to be uttered in my presence without testifying my sense of that error, if heard in any company and from any person, much less from one so dear to me as yourself, and I have spoken boldly, hoping to lead you to refine your sense of honor, till it reaches a standard which a christian soldier may not justly be ashamed to acknowledge."
A few weeks since Clair might have smiled at the simplicity and unworldliness of his uncle's remarks, but there was something within him then that told him they were stamped with the irresistible force of truth.
He walked on in silence, pushing aside with his feet, the few withered leaves which were straggling in his path. It was one of those dark, mysterious days, when the wind blows sullenly amongst the trees, speaking strange words, in its own wild tones, of the year that is past; and the withered leaves as they spin round in the eddying wind, seem to call attention to themselves, and to ask what men have been doing since they budded forth in the gay spring, full of hope and promise to the sons of earth. They had played their part well and merrily, they had gladdened the heart and delighted the eye, they had made fair and beautiful the spots where their short day of life had been spent, and now, as they fell with their fantastic motion to the ground, their rustling music seemed to speak in forcible language to the heart of him, who had idled away part of the glowing summer of his life with few thoughts but of selfish amusement.
With some such thoughts as these the two continued their short walk, which had been confined to the dry bit of road under the trees, which in damp or dirty weather was often chosen as a sort of promenade.
Mr. Ware was not sorry to see his nephew's unusual silence, for he was naturally too ready to act without thinking, and often, by the readiness of his professions in favor of any new idea of improvement, cheated his conscience of its performance, and he now watched him, with the grave interest which a good man feels, when he looks on the struggles of conscience, and does not know on which side the victory will lie.
"Even you, sir," exclaimed Clair, rather suddenly, "would not wish me to marry Lucy Villars! fool as I have been, you do not think I deserve so great a punishment, as the possession of such a wife."
"I wish you," replied Mr. Ware, "to do neither more nor less then your own sense of honor and good feeling may dictate, under the difficult circumstances in which you have placed yourself."
"I cannot—I never can do that!" exclaimed Clair, vehemently.