Perhaps it was not yet too late to think that all was not hopeless.

It appeared, too, that several letters had been written which had never reached me; so, while I accused them of neglect and forgetfulness, I was really more amenable to the charge myself; for, from the moment I had heard of my cousin Guy's having been domesticated amongst them, and the rumours of his marriage had reached me, I suffered my absurd jealousy to blind my reason, and never wrote another line after.

I ought to have known how "bavarde" [boasting] Guy always was -- that he never met with the most commonplace attentions any where, that he did not immediately write home about settlements and pin-money, and portions for younger children, and all that sort of nonsense.

Now I saw it all plainly, and ten thousand times quicker than my hopes were extinguished before were they again kindled, and I could not refrain from regarding Lady Jane as a mirror of constancy, and myself the most fortunate man in Europe.

My old castle-building propensities came back upon me in an instant, and I pictured myself, with Lady Jane as my companion, wandering among the beautiful scenery of the Neckar, beneath the lofty ruins of Heidelberg, or skimming the placid surface of the Rhine, while, "mellowed by distance," came the rich chorus of a student's melody, filling the air with its flood of song.