’He prospers, Annabel; let that be our consolation:  I have at least not injured him.’

They turned their steps; their breakfast was now prepared.  The sun had risen above the hill beneath whose shade they rested, and the opposite side of the valley sparkled in light.  It was a cheerful scene.  ’I have a passion for living in the air,’ said Herbert; ’I always envied the shepherds in Don Quixote.  One of my youthful dreams was living among mountains of rosemary, and drinking only goat’s milk.  After breakfast I will read you Don Quixote’s description of the golden age.  I have often read it until the tears came into my eyes.’

‘We must fancy ourselves in Spain,’ said Lady Annabel; ’it is not difficult in this wild green valley; and if we have not rosemary, we have scents as sweet.  Nature is our garden here, Venetia; and I do not envy even the statues and cypresses of our villa of the lake.’

‘We must make a pilgrimage some day to the Maggiore, Annabel,’ said Herbert.  ‘It is hallowed ground to me now.’

Their meal was finished, the servants brought their work, and books, and drawings; and Herbert, resuming his natural couch, re-opened his Plato, but Venetia ran into the villa, and returned with a volume.  ‘You must read us the golden age, papa,’ she said, as she offered him, with a smile, his favourite Don Quixote.

‘You must fancy the Don looking earnestly upon a handful of acorns,’ said Herbert, opening the book, ’while he exclaims, “O happy age! which our first parents called the age of gold! not because gold, so much adored in this iron age, was then easily purchased, but because those two fatal words, meum and tuum, were distinctions unknown to the people of those fortunate times; for all things were in common in that holy age:  men, for their sustenance, needed only to lift their hands, and take it from the sturdy oak, whose spreading arms liberally invited them to gather the wholesome savoury fruit; while the clear springs, and silver rivulets, with luxuriant plenty, afforded them their pure refreshing water.  In hollow trees, and in the clefts of rocks, the labouring and industrious bees erected their little commonwealths, that men might reap with pleasure and with ease the sweet and fertile harvest of their toils, The tough and strenuous cork-trees did, of themselves, and without other art than their native liberality, dismiss and impart their broad light bark, which served to cover those lowly huts, propped up with rough-hewn stakes, that were first built as a shelter against the inclemencies of the air.  All then was union, all peace, all love and friendship in the world.  As yet no rude ploughshare presumed with violence to pry into the pious bowels of our mother earth, for she without compulsion kindly yielded from every part of her fruitful and spacious bosom, whatever might at once satisfy, sustain, and indulge her frugal children.  Then was the time when innocent,