"All the same, Fan," added Mrs. Skene, as she took her candlestick
at two in the morning, "if it comes off, Cashel will never be master
in his own house."
"I can see that very plain," said Fanny; "but if respectable
professional people are not good enough for him, he will have only
himself to thank if he gets himself looked down upon by empty-headed
swells."
Meanwhile, Lydia, on her return to the castle after a long drive
round the country, had attempted to overcome an attack of
restlessness by setting to work on the biography of her father. With
a view to preparing a chapter on his taste in literature she had
lately been examining his favorite books for marked passages. She
now resumed this search, not setting methodically to work, but
standing perched on the library ladder, taking down volume after
volume, and occasionally dipping into the contents for a few pages
or so. At this desultory work the time passed as imperceptibly as
the shadows lengthened. The last book she examined was a volume of
poems. There were no marks in it; but it opened at a page which had
evidently lain open often before. The first words Lydia saw were
these:
"What would I give for a heart of flesh to warm me through Instead
of this heart of stone ice-cold whatever I do; Hard and cold and
small, of all hearts the worst of all.
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