“Ay. Strength, for me, has finally departed, I fear.”
“You must not think that, Sir George. Now that you have so far recovered as to go out, you will improve daily.”
“And get well all one way, Godolphin,” joined in the hearty voice of Colonel Max. “Never lose heart, man.”
Sir George turned his eyes upon Colonel Max with a cheerful glance. “Who told you I was losing heart?”
“Yourself. When a man begins to talk of his strength having finally departed, what’s that, but a proof of his losing heart? Low spirits never cured any one yet: but they have killed thousands.”
“I shall be sixty-six years old to-morrow, colonel: and if, at that age, I can ‘lose heart’ at the prospect of the great change, my life has served me to little purpose. The young may faint at the near approach of death; the old should not.”
“Sixty-six, old!” ejaculated Colonel Max. “I have never kept count of my own age, but I know I am that if I am a day; and I am young yet. I may live these thirty years to come: and shall try for it, too.”
“I hope you will, colonel,” was the warm answer of Sir George Godolphin. “Prior’s Ash could ill spare you.”
“I don’t know about that,” laughed the colonel. “But I do know that I could ill spare life. I wish you could take the run with us this morning!”
“I wish I could. But that you might accuse me of—what was it?—losing heart, I would say that my last run with the hounds has been taken. It has cost me an effort to come so far as this, walking my horse at a snail’s pace. Do you see Lady Godolphin? She ought to be here.”