‘Cheated of my due,’ the man of ambition cries; ‘but if there had been a fair field for me I would have accomplished all my aims, and the world would have been the gainer.’
‘Let us walk steadily on,’ says the philosopher gently, ‘and our memories of the sunlit streaks on the other side will cheer us on our way downward. There is no life that has not some pleasant memory that will bring a sense of happiness to the most desolate—if it be not thrust aside by vain repining. All men and women may be happy, if’——
Oh, that infinite ‘If!’
CHAPTER II.—WHAT MIGHT BE.
The place was the garden of Willowmere. The time was the middle of August, when trees and fields and bracken were faltering into that full ripeness which bodes decay. At that period, note the gradation of hues in the forest land—from deep watery green to pale, sensitive yellow, every leaf trembling in the sunlight with ever-changing shades. In the garden the forward apples were showing ruddy cheeks, and the late pear presented a sullen gray green.
The persons were Madge Heathcote, niece of Richard Crawshay, the sturdy yeoman farmer of Willowmere, and Philip Hadleigh, son of the master of Ringsford Manor.
She was somewhat pale and anxious: he was inclined to hustle her anxiety aside with the blissful hopefulness of youth and indifference to consequences.
‘I am going to give you very bad advice, Madge; will you listen to it?’
‘Is it very bad?’ she asked, lifting her eyes, in which there was an expression curiously compounded of pathos and coquetry.
‘Very bad indeed,’ he responded cheerfully, ‘for I am going to tell you that you are not to mind your uncle at all, but be guided by me now, as you will be, I hope, at no very distant date.’