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As Henry Beckford had decided he would not enter
college until the fall, Ralph, whose sensitive nature
shrunk from the companionless situation of entering
alone, determined to wait for the company of
his cousin. Meanwhile the spring wore away, and
Ralph beguiled his solitary hours in his uncle's office,
to whom his company had almost become a want.
The lawyer always asked for him, if he came not
in the morning, and frequently, for he had no students,
as he said they took up time which could be
more profitably spent, he got Ralph to search for
authorities for him, or to copy an opinion, or to read
to him some miscellaneous work in the afternoon or
evening, when he threw by for awhile his professional
cares. Gladsdown Beckford stood at the head
of his profession, and held himself above doing any
of its drudgery, which every American lawyer, unless
he is very distinguished, is compelled to do, as
in this country counsellor, advocate and attorney,
which in England are separate vocations, are combined.
Gladsdown Beckford did very little writing,
except in giving opinions, that were not often very
long; and in making notes of his addresses to juries,
or of arguments before the court. He was anxious
at first Ralph should read law, but he soon discovered
that his mind was so imbued with literary

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partialities, it would be next to impossible to give
it a taste for the crabbed technicalities of Coke.
In watching the developements of Ralph's mind and
character,—and Ralph at first seemed desirous of
being a lawyer, and had the wish to force his will in
that direction, from which, the older he grew, the
more his excursive and imaginative mind rebelled,—
the uncle became almost satisfied, as great a doubter
as his profession had made him on most points, that
there were certain biases which some minds receive
from nature, which unfit them for his profession.
He therefore, knowing that his nephew would
inherit an ample fortune at the death of his father,
felt it was not necessary to press any profession upon
him; or to say the truth, finding so much pleasure
and relief from Ralph's society, who sat so quietly in
his office while he was engaged, and who so soon,
when he was not, became his trust-worthy companion
in riding, walking, reading or conversation, the lawyer
scarcely thought about it, and having little of the
society of his son, whom he deemed entirely given up
to fashion and frivolity, he was content to enjoy his
nephew's, without thinking of his future prospects.
Ralph being of a grateful disposition, exerted himself
to please his uncle, and thus the affection existing between
them, grew daily stronger.

Towards midsummer, Gladsdown Beckford was
taken violently and dangerously ill, with a bilious
fever, brought on by assiduous application to his duties.
For some time his life was despaired of; he

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convalesced very slowly, and for a long time remained
feeble.

Ralph had hoped to repair to Stockbridge Farm,
near which there was a celebrated academy, and
fit himself for college; but his uncle was lonely without
him, and seemed to expect his attention, which
the grateful disposition of Ralph was anxious to bestow.
His aunt was a close watcher by the side of
her husband; but as there was little community of
sentiment between them, she always felt relieved if
some of her acquaintances were with her, and as
she was very fond of young company, she invited
Helen Murray to be her guest, the young lady of
whom Henry spoke to Ralph in their conversation
recorded in our second chapter. Leading a life of
bustle and excitement, the lawyer, in his long convalescence,
could not bear to be left alone for a moment.
He was of a gay disposition, and not at all
over fond of the gravities of life; he, therefore, like
his lady, under his present indisposition, preferred
young company to old. His physician thought their
gaiety would afford him amusement and excitement
sufficient; and he discouraged the visits of his professional
brethren, who, he felt, would act upon his
patient like the blast of the trumpet on the war-horse—
make him pant again for the scene of strife.

Miss Murray, who was a lively, fashionable, and
lovely girl, and, for her years, much experienced in
the world, and fond of its fascinations, willingly accepted
Mrs. Beckford's invitation, the more so, as

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she was well acquainted with Henry, and had made
some progress in a flirtation, or in tender emotions,
maybe, with him. As Helen was rich, beautiful,
and accomplished, the parents of Henry had no
objections if such things were. Helen's parents,
who were descendants from a Quaker family, and
disposed to be plainer in their ways than suited their
daughter, being, nevertheless, easy people, gave her
entirely her own way, and she grew up petted by
parents and by brothers. She was the only daughter,
with two brothers her elders, and was not at all
disposed to yield her own whims or will to any dictation.
She was of proud spirit and fond of spreading
her conquests in the realms of the heart, yet she
was good-hearted; but being a decided belle, and in
the full bloom of her bellehood, some grains of allowance
must be made when we come to consider
the last broad assertion. To bright eye, fair forehead,
with remarkably well-defined eyebrows and
temples, a chiselled nose and lip, she joined an exquisitely
turned neck and bust, and a figure full,
floating, and voluptuous. Combined to these attractions,
and imparting to them their chief charm, were
her manners,—practised and polished to the artist's
consummate touch, she had acquired his greatest art—
the art to conceal her art. It was only the very
minute observer that discovered her proficiency in
address; to all others it seemed the impulses of nature,—
and it could not be said that she studied it
much, after all, for in her childhood she had been

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remarkable for a coquettish wilfulness of disposition
which displayed tact in its very temper.

“Ah!” said Helen, entering the parlour, the first
day the distinguished invalid had been conveyed to
it, where he reclined upon a sofa, with his nephew
reading to him, and his lady near by feeding a canary
bird. “Ah! Mr. Beckford, welcome down,
sir. Mr. Ralph Beckford, you shall not always
have that pleasure and that honour—I shall deprive
you of it, sir, and compel you to be a listener. O!
my dear Mrs. Beckford, what a beautiful bird—this
is the first time I have seen it.”

After pouting her pretty lips, and endeavouring
to chirp like the bird, she continued—

“O, you merry little creature, you!—you are
happy—you will never make the complaint of
Sterne's starling.”

“I am making the complaint though, Helen,”
said Mr. Beckford.

“O yes, sir; but you have more than green fields
and idle runaway waters to call you out; you have
the encounters that stir the blood. You have nothing
to do with the green woods or fields, except to wear
the fresh laurel that is gathered there for you. Mr.
Ralph Beckford, I am informed, pants for the paradise
of young romance, sir.”

“What paradise?” inquired Mr. Beckford.

“A country life, sir,” replied the lady, throwing
an arch glance at Ralph, “is it not so, sir?” addressing
him.

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Ralph blushed before he could rally and simply
confess the fact.

“And where do you think I heard it, Mr. Ralph
Beckford? Do you think one of those little birds
told me, or do you believe that a rural one from the
neighbourhood of your contemplated retirement did
me the honour, like the lady-bug, to fly away and
give me the intelligence?”

Ere Ralph could answer, his cousin Henry, who,
in ascending the steps had overheard the remark,
and who had merely come on a kind of visit of
ceremony to inquire after the health of his father,
stay a few moments and depart, entered the room,
and replied for him by saying, with a graceful salute,

“My cousin Ralph is to be envied, Miss Helen,
first, that a bird should take such an interest in him
as to tell of his intentions, and last, though not least,
that you, who turn a deaf ear to all others, should
listen to the bird that talked of him. Was it for the
sake of the bird that you listened, or for the burden
of its song?”

Henry himself had told Miss Murray of Ralph's
rural inclinations, and ridiculed them without mercy;
the lady liked not, therefore, the vanity which a part
of his remark implied, and she playfully but keenly
said:

“It must have been for the burden of the song, for
the bird that told it was a peacock, a parrot, or a
popinjay, I forget which.”

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Henry coloured, and his brow darkened; but he
instantly recovered and replied:

“And you listened, did you, and the bird rested on
your shoulder; happy peacock, parrot or popinjay,
though lord Chesterfield forbids us to quote proverbs
I cannot but reflect upon the old one about birds of a
feather.”

The lady laughed playfully, and in perfect good
humour replied:

“You do a great many things, Master Henry, that
my lord Chesterfield forbids; but your politeness is
like your wit and your whiskers, (Henry had made
an unsuccessful attempt to raise a pair)—pardon me,
sir, for the personality—not yet able to show itself.
As to what you say about the proverb, sir, you must
remember what your father will tell you, that circumstances
alter cases. That even as dignified a
people as the Romans listened to as foolish a bird as
the goose, when it cackled ominously.”

Mr. Gladsdown Beckford laughed heartily.

“Helen,” he exclaimed, “you should have been a
lawyer. I rejoice indeed that I am getting well; if
ever I should be a widower, I bespeak you for my
second wife.”

“If Helen would have such an old gentleman, my
dear,” said Mrs. Beckford peevishly; for she was one
of your ladies who are rather jealous of their lords.

“I should be proud, my dear Mrs. Beckford,” said
Helen, with a woman's tact, “in being even the second
choice of a gentleman who had made you his first.”

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Mrs. Beckford smiled, and unconsciously adjusted
her cap in the large mirror that hung adjacent to the
canary cage.

Henry laughed satirically, and Ralph gazed with
an eye of admiration on the lady, which he averted
to the book that he held in his hand, the moment he
caught hers. Helen understood Ralph's glance, but
coloured not, though he did. She thought him unsophisticated,
and she felt that kind of interest in him
which a man of the world feels in a guileless girl of
fifteen—she had almost made up her mind to have
a flirtation with him, and make him her adorer,—
'twould be something new.

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