those mountain wastes of snow in Switzerland, then inaccessible to any human foot; and had been speculating which was the lonelier, those solitary regions, or a deserted ocean.
“Riding today, Trot?” said my aunt, putting her head in at the door.
“Yes,” said I, “I am going over to Canterbury. It’s a good day for a ride.”
“I hope your horse may think so too,” said my aunt; “but at present he is holding down his head and his ears, standing before the door there, as if he thought his stable preferable.”
My aunt, I may observe, allowed my horse on the forbidden ground, but had not at all relented towards the donkeys.
“He will be fresh enough, presently!” said I.
“The ride will do his master good, at all events,” observed my aunt, glancing at the papers on my table. “Ah, child, you pass a good many hours here! I never thought, when I used to read books, what work it was to write them.”
“It’s work enough to read them, sometimes,” I returned. “As to the writing, it has its own charms, aunt.”
“Ah! I see!” said my aunt. “Ambition, love of approbation, sympathy, and much more, I suppose? Well: go along with you!”
“Do you know anything more,” said I, standing composedly before her—she had patted me on the shoulder, and sat down in my chair—“of that attachment of Agnes?”
She looked up in my face a little while, before replying:
“I think I do, Trot.”