第107章

As he crossed his threshold, Paolo started back, and exclaimed, "Why, Excellency! I scarcely recognise you! Amusement, I see, is a great beautifier to the young.Yesterday you looked so pale and haggard; but Fillide's merry eyes have done more for you than the Philosopher's Stone (saints forgive me for naming it) ever did for the wizards." And Glyndon, glancing at the old Venetian mirror as Paolo spoke, was scarcely less startled than Paolo himself at the change in his own mien and bearing.His form, before bent with thought, seemed to him taller by half the head, so lithesome and erect rose his slender stature; his eyes glowed, his cheeks bloomed with health and the innate and pervading pleasure.If the mere fragrance of the elixir was thus potent, well might the alchemists have ascribed life and youth to the draught!

"You must forgive me, Excellency, for disturbing you," said Paolo, producing a letter from his pouch; "but our Patron has just written to me to say that he will be here to-morrow, and desired me to lose not a moment in giving to yourself this billet, which he enclosed.""Who brought the letter?"

"A horseman, who did not wait for any reply."Glyndon opened the letter, and read as follows:--"I return a week sooner than I had intended, and you will expect me to-morrow.You will then enter on the ordeal you desire, but remember that, in doing so, you must reduce Being as far as possible into Mind.The senses must be mortified and subdued,--not the whisper of one passion heard.Thou mayst be master of the Cabala and the Chemistry; but thou must be master also over the Flesh and the Blood,--over Love and Vanity, Ambition and Hate.I will trust to find thee so.Fast and meditate till we meet!"Glyndon crumpled the letter in his hand with a smile of disdain.

What! more drudgery,--more abstinence! Youth without love and pleasure! Ha, ha! baffled Mejnour, thy pupil shall gain thy secrets without thine aid!

"And Fillide! I passed her cottage in my way,--she blushed and sighed when I jested her about you, Excellency!""Well, Paolo! I thank thee for so charming an introduction.

Thine must be a rare life."

"Ah, Excellency, while we are young, nothing like adventure,--except love, wine, and laughter!"

"Very true.Farewell, Maestro Paolo; we will talk more with each other in a few days."All that morning Glyndon was almost overpowered with the new sentiment of happiness that had entered into him.He roamed into the woods, and he felt a pleasure that resembled his earlier life of an artist, but a pleasure yet more subtle and vivid, in the various colours of the autumn foliage.Certainly Nature seemed to be brought closer to him; he comprehended better all that Mejnour had often preached to him of the mystery of sympathies and attractions.He was about to enter into the same law as those mute children of the forests.He was to know THE RENEWALOF LIFE; the seasons that chilled to winter should yet bring again the bloom and the mirth of spring.Man's common existence is as one year to the vegetable world: he has his spring, his summer, his autumn, and winter,--but only ONCE.But the giant oaks round him go through a revolving series of verdure and youth, and the green of the centenarian is as vivid in the beams of May as that of the sapling by its side."Mine shall be your spring, but not your winter!" exclaimed the aspirant.

Wrapped in these sanguine and joyous reveries, Glyndon, quitting the woods, found himself amidst cultivated fields and vineyards to which his footstep had not before wandered; and there stood, by the skirts of a green lane that reminded him of verdant England, a modest house,--half cottage, half farm.The door was open, and he saw a girl at work with her distaff.She looked up, uttered a slight cry, and, tripping gayly into the lane to his side, he recognised the dark-eyed Fillide.