AT HOME Some of the miserable, and I might say strange, things which had befallen me from time to time unseasonably, now began to force their remembrance upon me.

Such dark figures always seem to make the most of a nervous moment, when solid reason yields to fluttering fear and small misgivings.

There any body seems to lie, as a stranded sailor lies, at the foot of perpendicular cliffs of most inhuman humanity, with all the world frowning down over the crest, and no one to throw a rope down.
Often and often had I felt this want of any one to help me, but the only way out of it seemed to be to do my best to help myself.
Even, now I had little hope, having been so often dashed, and knowing that my father's cousin possessed no share of my father's strength.

He might, at the utmost, give good advice, and help me with kind feeling; but if he wanted to do more, surely he might have tried ere now.

But my thoughts about this were cut short by a message that he would be glad to see me, and I followed the servant to the library.
Here I found Lord Castlewood sitting in a high-backed chair, uncushioned and uncomfortable.