CHAPTER TWENTIETH.
So, while the Goose, of whom the fable told, Incumbent, brooded o'er her eggs of gold, With hand outstretched, impatient to destroy, Stole on her secret nest the cruel Boy, Whose gripe rapacious changed her splendid dream, -- For wings vain fluttering, and for dying scream.
The Loves of the Sea-weeds.
From the time that Sir Arthur Wardour had become possessor of the treasure found in Misticot's grave, he had been in a state of mind more resembling ecstasy than sober sense.

Indeed, at one time his daughter had become seriously apprehensive for his intellect; for, as he had no doubt that he had the secret of possessing himself of wealth to an unbounded extent, his language and carriage were those of a man who had acquired the philosopher's stone.

He talked of buying contiguous estates, that would have led him from one side of the island to the other, as if he were determined to brook no neighbour save the sea.

He corresponded with an architect of eminence, upon a plan of renovating the castle of his forefathers on a style of extended magnificence that might have rivalled that of Windsor, and laying out the grounds on a suitable scale.

Troops of liveried menials were already, in fancy, marshalled in his halls, and--for what may not unbounded wealth authorize its possessor to aspire to ?--the coronet of a marquis, perhaps of a duke, was glittering before his imagination.