for indifference. Abroad he had hitherto been one of those juveniles to whom no calculation forbids contradiction and no interest necessitates attention. At home, his mother never ceased talking, neither did his sisters; and silence in a woman had become to him her perfection. For above an hour, with a feeling of most enviable content, he had been detailing to Emily how his beautiful chestnut mare, Zephyr, had caught, suffered from, and been cured of her last cold. At first he expected to be interrupted—then looked to see if she yawned—but neither of these conversational contingencies occurring, and Emily giving a proper quantity of acquiescing bows, he yielded himself up to the full enjoyment of so delightful a companion.
In one part of the grounds were stationed some jugglers—these suggested a full account of how, when he was at college, he had taken some lessons of one, till he was nearly as expert in catching the balls as his master. The Prague minstrels, stationed in a young plantation of firs, gave another occasion of discourse, how he had once attempted the French horn himself, but found his lungs too delicate—how his mother had been afraid of a consumption.
