'Your young ladies have left you alone,' said he.
'Yes, they are occupied with more agreeable company.'
'Then don't trouble yourself to overtake them.' I slackened my pace; but next moment regretted having done so: my companion did not speak; and I had nothing in the world to say, and feared he might be in the same predicament. At length, however, he broke the pause by asking, with a certain quiet abruptness peculiar to himself, if I liked flowers.
'Yes; very much,' I answered, 'wild-flowers especially.'
'I like wild-flowers,' said he; 'others I don't care about, because I have no particular associations connected with them-- except one or two. What are your favourite flowers?'
'Primroses, bluebells, and heath-blossoms.'
'Not violets?'
'No; because, as you say, I have no particular associations connected with them; for there are no sweet violets among the hills and valleys round my home.'
'It must be a great consolation to you to have a home, Miss Grey,' observed my companion after a short pause: 'however remote, or however seldom visited, still it is something to look to.'
'It is so much that I think I could not live without it,' replied I, with an enthusiasm of which I immediately repented; for I thought it must have sounded essentially silly.
'Oh, yes, you could,' said he, with a thoughtful smile. 'The ties that bind us to life are tougher than you imagine, or than anyone can who has not felt how roughly they may be pulled without breaking. You might be miserable without a home, but even YOU could live; and not so miserably as you suppose. The human heart is like india-rubber; a little swells it, but a great deal will not burst it. If "little more than nothing will disturb it, little less than all things will suffice" to break it. As in the outer members of our frame, there is a vital power inherent in itself that strengthens it against external violence. Every blow that shakes it will serve to harden it against a future stroke; as constant labour thickens the skin of the hand, and strengthens its muscles instead of wasting them away: so that a day of arduous toil, that might excoriate a lady's palm, would make no sensible impression on that of a hardy ploughman.
'I speak from experience--partly my own. There was a time when I thought as you do--at least, I was fully persuaded that home and its affections were the only things that made life tolerable: that, if deprived of these, existence would become a burden hard to be endured; but now I have no home--unless you would dignify my two hired rooms at Horton by such a name;--and not twelve months ago I lost the last and dearest of my early friends; and yet, not only I live, but I am not wholly destitute of hope and comfort, even for this life: though I must acknowledge that I can seldom enter even an humble cottage at the close of day, and see its inhabitants peaceably gathered around their cheerful hearth, without a feeling ALMOST of envy at their domestic enjoyment.'