When one is getting on for forty;
“When we have made our love, and gamed our gaming,
Dressed, voted, shone, and maybe, something more;
With dandies dined, heard senators declaiming;
Seen beauties brought to market by the score,”
and so on, there arises a strong desire for a quiet old-fashioned country life, in which incessant movement is not a necessary part of the programme.’
‘But you are not forty, Will?’ said Charlotte.
‘My dear, I was thirty-nine last January.’
‘Well, men about here are youths at that age. It was India used you up so, when you served in the line, was it not? I wish you had never gone there!’
‘So do I,’ said De Stancy drily. ‘But I ought to grow a youth again, like the rest, now I am in my native air.’
They came to a narrow brook, not wider than a man’s stride, and Miss De Stancy halted on the edge.
‘Why, Lottie, you used to jump it easily enough,’ said her brother. ‘But we won’t make her do it now.’ He took her in his arms, and lifted her over, giving her a gratuitous ride for some additional yards, and saying, ‘You are not a pound heavier, Lott, than you were at ten years old.... What do you think of the country here, Mr. Somerset? Are you going to stay long?’
‘I think very well of it,’ said Somerset. ‘But I leave to-morrow morning, which makes it necessary that I turn back in a minute or two from walking with you.’