Seeking for danger and adventure vain?—Fairy Queen.
Morton mounted his horse, and rode to the house of Mrs. Euston. He found her daughter alone.
"I have come to take leave of you. I am on my travels again."
"Again! You are always on the wing. I supposed that you must have learned, by this time, to value home, or, at least, be reconciled to staying there in peace."
"My home is a little lonely, and none of the liveliest. Movement is my best repose."
"You are wholly made up of restlessness."
"That is Nature's failing, not mine; or if Nature declines to bear the burden of my shortcomings, I will put them upon Destiny, and with much better cause. But this is not restlessness; or, if it is, it has method in it. This journey is a plan of eight years' standing. I concocted it when I was a junior, half fledged, at college, and never lost sight of it but once, and then for a cause that does not exist now."
"Where are you going?"
Morton gave the outline of his journey.
"But is not that very difficult and dangerous?"
"Not very."
"You will not be alone, surely."
"I provided for a companion years ago. My friend Meredith and I struck an agreement, that when I went on this journey he should go with me."
An instant shadow passed across the face of Fanny Euston.
"So you will have a companion," she replied, with a nonchalance too distinct to be genuine.
"Not at all. He breaks his word. He won't hear of going."
The cloud vanished.
"I take it ill of him; for I had relied on having him with me. He and I are old fellow-travellers. I have tried him in sunshine and rain, and know his metal." And he launched into an emphatic eulogy of his friend, to which Fanny Euston listened with a pleasure which she could not wholly hide.
"He best knows why he fails me. It is some cogent and prevailing reason; no light cause, or sudden fancy. Some powerful motive, mining deep and moving strongly, has shaken him from his purpose; so I forgive him for his falling off."
As Morton spoke, he was studying his companion's features, and she, conscious of his scrutiny, visibly changed color.
"Dear cousin," he said, with a changed tone, "if I must lose my friend, let me find, when I return, that my loss has been overbalanced by his gain. I will reconcile myself to it, if it may help to win for him the bounty that he aspires to."
The blush deepened to crimson on Fanny Euston's cheek; and without waiting for more words, Morton bade her farewell.