At Gwynne Abbey, time sped fast and pleasantly; each day brought its own enjoyments, and of the Knight's guests there was not one who did not in his heart believe that Maurice Darcy was the very happiest man in the kingdom.

Lord Netherby, the frigid courtier, felt, for the first time, perhaps, in his life, how much cordiality can heighten the pleasures of social intercourse, and how the courtesy of kind feeling can add to the enjoyments of refined and cultivated tastes. Lady Eleanor had lost nothing of the powers of fascination for which her youth had been celebrated, and there was, in the very seclusion of her life, that which gave the charm of novelty to her remarks on people and events. The Knight himself, abounding in resources of every kind, was a companion the most fastidious or exacting could not weary of; and as for Helen, her captivations were acknowledged by those who, but a week before, would not have admitted the possibility of any excellence that had not received the stamp of London approval.

Crofton could never expatiate sufficiently on the delights of an establishment which, with the best cook, the best cellar, and the best stable, called not upon him for the exercise of the small talents and petty attentions by which his invitations to great houses were usually purchased; while the younger men of the party agreed in regarding their friend Lionel as the most to be envied of all their acquaintance.

Happiness, perhaps, shines more brightly by reflected light; certainly Lionel Darcy never felt more disposed to be content with the world, and, although not devoid of a natural pride at exhibiting to his English friends the style of his father's house and habits, yet was he far more delighted at the praises he heard on every side of the Knight himself. Maurice Darcy possessed that rarest of all gifts, the power of being a delightful companion to younger men, without ever detracting in the slightest degree from the most rigid tone of good taste and good principle. The observation may seem an illiberal one, but it is unhappily too true, that even among those who from right feeling would be incapable of anything mean or sordid, there often prevails a laxity in expression and a libertinism of sentiment very far remote from their real opinions, and, consequently, such as flatter this tendency are frequently the greatest favorites among them. The Knight, not less from high principle than pride, rejected every such claim; his manly, joyous temperament needed no aids to its powers of interesting and amusing; his sympathies went with young men in all their enthusiasm for sport; he gloried in the exuberance of their high spirits, and felt his own youth come back in the eager pleasure with which he listened to their plans of amusement.

It may well be believed with what sorrow to each the morning dawned that was to be the last of their visit. These last times are sad things! They are the deaths of our affections and attachments; for assuredly the memory we retain of past pleasures is only the unreal spirit of a world we are to know of no more,—not alone the records of friends lost or dead, but of ourselves, such as we once were, and can never again be; of a time when hope was fed by credulity, and could not be exhausted by disappointment. They must have had but a brief experience of life who do not see in every separation from friends the many chances against their meeting again, least of all, of meeting unchanged, with all around them as they parted.

These thoughts, and others like them, weighed heavily on the hearts of those who now assembled for the last time beneath the roof of Gwynne Abbey.

It was in vain that Lionel suggested various schemes of pleasure for the day; the remembrance that it was the last was ever present, and while every moment seemed precious, there was a fidgety impatience to be about and stirring, mingled with a desire to loiter and linger over the spot so associated with pleasant memories.

A boating party to Clare Island, long planned and talked over, could find now no advocates. All Lionel's descriptions of the shooting along the rocky shores of the bay were heard unheeded; every one clung to the abbey, as if to enjoy to the very last the sense of home happiness they had known there. Even those less likely to indulge feelings of attachment were not free from the depressing influence of a last day. Nor were these sentiments confined to the visitors only. Lady Eleanor experienced a return of her former spirits in her intercourse with those whose habits and opinions all reminded her of the past, and would gladly have prolonged a visit so full of pleasant recollections. The request was, however, in vain; the Earl was to be in waiting early in the following week, Lionel's leave was only regimental, and equally limited, and each of the others had engagements and projects no less fixed and immutable.

In little knots of two and three they spent the day wandering about from place to place, to take a last look of the great cliff, to visit for the last time the little wood path, whose every turning presented some new aspect of the bay and the shore. Lord Netherby attached himself to the Knight, devoting himself with a most laudable martyrdom to a morning in the farm-yard and the stable, where, notwithstanding all his efforts, his blunders betrayed how ill-suited were his habits to country life and its interests. He bore all, however, well and heroically, for he had an object in view, and that, with him, was always sufficient to induce any degree of endurance. Up to this moment he had scarcely enjoyed an opportunity of conversing with the Knight on the subject of politics. The few words they had exchanged at the cover side were all that passed between them, and although they conveyed sentiments very remote from his own, he did not entirely despair of gaining over one who evidently was less actuated by party motives than impressed by the force of strong personal convictions.

“Such a man will, of course,” thought the Earl, “be in the Imperial Parliament, and carry with him great influence on every question connected with Ireland; his support of the Ministry will be all the more valuable that his reputation is intact from every stain of corruption. To withdraw him from his own country by the seductions of London life would not be easy, but he may be attached to England by ties still more binding.” Such were some of the reasonings which the wily peer revolved in his mind, and to whose aid a fortunate accident had in some measure contributed.

“I believe I have never shown you our garden, my Lord,” said the Knight, who, at last taking compassion on the suffering complaisance of the Earl, proposed this change. “The season is scarcely the most flattering, but we are early in this part of Ireland. What say you if we walk thither?”

The plan was at once approved of, and after a short circuit through a shrubbery, they crossed a large orchard, and, ascending a gentle slope, they entered the garden, which rose in successive terraces behind the abbey, and commanded a wide prospect over the bay and the sea beyond it. Lord Netherby's admiration was not feigned, as he turned his eyes around and beheld the extent and beauty of that cultivated scene, which, in the brightness of a spring morning, glittered like a gem on the mountain's side. The taste alone was not the engrossing thought of his mind, but he reflected on the immense expenditure such a caprice must have cost, terraced as the ground was into the very granite rock, and the earth all supplied artificially. The very keeping these parterres in order was a thing of no mean cost. Not all the terrors of his own approaching fate could deprive Darcy of a sense of pride as he watched the expression of the Earl's features, surprise and wonder depicted in every lineament.

“How extensive the park is,” said the courtier, at length, half ashamed, as it seemed, of giving way to his amazement; “are those trees yonder within your grounds?”

“Yes, my Lord: the wood at that point where you see the foam splashing up is our limit in that direction; on this side we stretch away somewhat further.”

“Whose property, then, have we yonder, where I see the village?”

“It is all the Gwynne estate,” said the Knight, with difficulty repressing the sigh that rose as he spoke.

“And the town?”

“The town also. The worthy monks took a wide circuit, and, by all accounts, did not misuse their wealth. I sadly fear, my Lord, their successors were not as blameless.”

“A noble possession, indeed!” said the Earl, half aloud, and not attending to Darcy's remark. “Are you certain, my dear Knight, that you have made your political influence at all commensurate with the amount of either your property or your talents? An English gentleman with an estate like this, and ability such as yours, might command any position he pleased.”

“In other words, my Lord, he might barter his independence for the exercise of a precarious power, and, in ceasing to dispense the duties of a landed proprietor, he might become a very considerable ingredient in a party.”

“I hope you do not deem the devoir of a country gentleman incompatible with the duties of a statesman?”

“By no means; but I greatly regret the gradual desertion of social influence in the search after political ascendency. I am not for the working of a system that spoils the gentry, and yet does not make them statesmen.”

“And yet the very essence of our Constitution is to connect the power of Government with the possession of landed property.”

“And justly so, too; none other offers so little in return as a mere speculation. None is so little exposed to the casualties which affect every other kind of wealth. The legitimate influence of the landed gentry is the safeguard of the State; but if, by the attractions of power, the flatteries of a Court, or the seductions of Party, you withdraw them from the rightful sphere of its exercise, you reduce them to the level of the Borough members, without, perhaps, their technical knowledge or professional acquirements. I am for giving them a higher position,—the heritage of the bold barons, from whom they are descended: but to maintain this, they must live on their own estates, dispense the influences of their wealth and their morals in their own native districts, be the friend of the poor man, the counsellor of the misguided, the encourager of the weak; know and be known to all around, not as the corrupt dispensers of Government patronage, but the guardians of those whose rights are in their keeping for defence and protection. I would have them with their rightful influence in the Senate; an influence which should preponderate in both Houses. Their rank and education would be the best guarantee for the safety and wisdom of their counsels, their property the best surety for the permanence of the institutions of the State. Suddenly acquired wealth can scarcely be intrusted with political power; it lacks the element of prudent caution, by which property is maintained as well as accumulated; it wants also the prestige of antiquity as a claim to respect; and, legislate as you will, men will look back as well as forward.”

Lord Netherby made no reply; he thought the Knight, perhaps, was venting his own regrets at the downfall of a political ascendency he wished to see vested in men of his own station,—a position they had long enjoyed, and which, in some respects, had placed them above the law.

“You lay more store by such ties, Knight,” said the Earl, in a low, insinuating voice, “than we are accustomed to do. Blood and birth have suffered less admixture with mere wealth here than with us.”

“Perhaps we do, my Lord,” said Darcy, smiling; “it is the compensation for our poverty. Unmixed descent is the boast of many who have retained nothing of their ancestors save the name.”

“But you yourself can scarcely be an advocate for the maintenance of these opinions: this spirit of clan and chieftainship is opposed, not only to progress, but to liberty.”

“I have given the best proof of the contrary,” said Darcy, laughing, “by marrying an Englishwoman,—a dereliction, I assure you, that cost me many a warm supporter in this very country.”

“Indeed! By the way, I am reminded of a subject I wished to speak of to you, and which I have been hesitating whether I should open with my cousin Eleanor or yourself; the moment seems, however, propitious,—may I broach it?”

Darcy bowed courteously, and the other resumed:—

“I will be brief, then. Young Beauclerk, a friend of your son Lionel, has been, as every one younger and older than himself must be, greatly taken by the charms of Miss Darcy. Brief as the acquaintance here has been, the poor fellow is desperately in love, and, while feeling how such an acknowledgment might prejudice his chance of success on so short an intimacy, he cannot leave this without the effort to secure for his pretensions a favorable hearing hereafter. In fact, my dear Knight, he has asked of me to be his intercessor with you,—not to receive him as a son-in-law, but to permit him to pay such attentions as, in the event of your daughter's acceptance, may enable him to make the offer of his hand and fortune. I need not tell you that in point of position and means he is unexceptionable; a very old Baronetcy,—not one of these yesterday creations made up of State Physicians and Surgeons in Ordinary,—an estate of above twelve thousand a year. Such are claims to look high with; but I confess I think he could not lay them at the feet of one more captivating than my fair Helen.”

Darcy made no reply for several minutes; he pressed his hand across his eyes, and turned his head away, as if to escape observation; then, with an effort that seemed to demand all his strength, he said,—

“This is impossible, my Lord. There are reasons—there are circumstances why I cannot entertain this proposition. I am not able to explain them; a few days more, and I need not trouble myself on that subject.”

The evident agitation of manner the Knight displayed astonished his companion, who, while he forebore to ask more directly for its reason, yet gently hinted that the obstacles alluded to might be less stringent than Darcy deemed them.

Darcy shook his head mournfully, and Lord Netherby, though most anxious to divine the secret of his thoughts, had too much breeding to continue the subject.

Without any abruptness, which might have left an unpleasant impression after it, the polished courtier once more adverted to Beauclerk, but rather in a tone of regret for the youth's own sake than with any reference to the Knight's refusal.

“There was a kind of selfishness in my advocacy, Knight,” said he, smiling. “I was—I am—very much depressed at quitting a spot where I have tasted more true happiness than it has been my fortune for many years to know, and I wish to carry away with me the reflection that I had left the germ of even greater happiness behind me; if Helen, however—”

“Hush!” said Darcy; “here she comes, with her mother.”

“My dear Lady Eleanor,” said Lord Netherby, “you have come to see me forget all the worldliness it has cost me a life to learn, and actually confess that I cannot tear myself away from the abbey.”

“Well, my Lord,” interposed Tom Nolan, who had just come up with a large walking party, “I suppose it's only ordering away the posters, and staying another day.”

“No, no, by Jove!” cried Crofton; “my Lord is in waiting, and I'm on duty.”

While the groups now gathered together from the different parts of the garden, Lord Netherby joined Beauclerk, who awaited him in a distant alley, and soon after the youth was seen returning alone to the abbey.

The time of bustle and leave-taking—that moment when many a false smile and merry speech ill conceals the secret sorrow—was come, and each after each spoke his farewell; and Lord Netherby, kindly pledging himself to make Lionel's peace at the Horse Guards for an extended absence of some days, thus conferred upon Lady Eleanor the very greatest of favors.

“Our next meeting is to be in London, remember,” said the peer, in his blandest accents. “I stand pledged to show my countrymen that I have nothing extenuated in speaking of Irish beauty;—nay, Helen, it is my last time, forgive it.”

“There they go,” said Darcy, as he looked after the retiring equipages. “Now, Eleanor, and my dear children, come along with me into the library. I have long been struggling against a secret sorrow; another moment would be more than I could bear.”

They turned silently towards the abbey, none daring, even by a look, to interrogate him whose sad accents foreboded so much evil; yet as they walked they drew closer around him, and seemed even by that gesture to show that, come what might, they would meet their fortune boldly.

Darcy moved on for some minutes sunk in thought; but as he ascended the wide steps of the terrace, appearing to read the motives of those who clung so closely to his side, he smiled sadly, and said, “Ay! I knew it well,—in weal or woe—together!”