Was it fair to force him, by virtue of his inborn kindness and courtesy, to come out of his privileges and deal with me, who could not altogether be in any place a mere nobody?
And so I refused his offer.
"I am very much obliged to you indeed," I said, "but I think you might be sorry for it.

I will come and stop with you every now and then, when your health is better, and you ask me.

But to live here altogether would not do; I should like it too well, and do nothing else." "Perhaps you are right," he replied, with the air of one who cares little for any thing, which is to me the most melancholy thing, and worse than any distress almost; "you are very young, my dear, and years should be allowed to pass before you know what full-grown sorrow is.

You have had enough, for your age, of it.

You had better not live in this house; it is not a house for cheerfulness." "Then if I must neither live here nor at Bruntsea," I asked, with sudden remonstrance, feeling as if every body desired to be quit of me or to worry me, "to what place in all the world am I to go, unless it is back to America?
I will go at once to Shoxford, and take lodgings of my own." "Perhaps you had better wait a little while," Lord Castlewood answered, gently, "although I would much rather have you at Shoxford than where you are at present.