The hours at Knowl were
numbered.
The evening before I departed I visited the full-length portrait of Uncle
Silas, and studied it for the last time carefully, with deep interest, for
many minutes; but with results vaguer than ever.
With a brother so generous and so wealthy, always ready to help him
forward; with his talents; with his lithe and gorgeous beauty, the shadow
of which hung on that canvas--what might he not have accomplished? whom
might he not have captivated? And yet where and what was he? A poor and
shunned old man, occupying a lonely house and place that did not belong to
him, married to degradation, with a few years of suspected and solitary
life before him, and then swift oblivion his best portion.
I gazed on the picture, to fix it well and vividly in my remembrance. I
might still trace some of its outlines and tints in its living original,
whom I was next day to see for the first time in my life.
So the morning came--my last for many a day at Knowl--a day of partings, a
day of novelty and regrets. The travelling carriage and post horses were
at the door. Cousin Monica's carriage had just carried her away to the
railway.
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