"
"Poor Austin! It is very sad. Papa and he are ill friends. There was some
desperate quarrel between them a few years ago; I do not even know what
about; and Austin was turned out of doors, never to come back any more.
Papa told me nothing about it, though it was the common talk at Holborough.
It was only from a letter of my aunt's that I learnt what had happened; and
I am never to speak of Austin when I go home, my aunt told me."
"Very hard lines," said the stranger, with a sympathetic air. "He was wild,
I suppose, in the usual way. Your brother was in a line regiment when I
knew him; but I think I heard afterwards that he had sold out, and had
dropped away from his old set, had emigrated, I believe, or something of
that kind exactly the thing I should do, if I found myself in difficulties;
turn backwoodsman, and wed some savage woman, who should rear my dusky
race, and whose kindred could put me in the way to make my fortune by
cattle-dealing; having done which, I should, of course, discover that fifty
years of Europe are worth more than a cycle of Cathay, and should turn my
steps homeward with a convenient obliviousness upon the subject of the
savage woman."
He spoke lightly, trying to win Clarissa from her sad thoughts, and with
the common masculine idea, that a little superficial liveliness of this
kind can lighten the load of a great sorrow.
"Come, Miss Lovel, I would give the world to see you smile.
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