of which natural result reacts in perturbation and confusion of thought and feeling.  But for many sakes the thought of home was in itself precious and enticing to her.  It was full of clear memories of her mother, and vague memories of her father, not to mention memories of the childhood Richard and she had spent together, from which the late mists had begun to rise, and reveal them sparkling with dew and sunshine.  As soon, therefore, as marquis Henry had gone to countess Anne, Dorothy took her leave, with many kind words between, of the ladies Elizabeth, Anne, and Mary, and set out, attended by her old bailiff and some of the men of her small tenantry, who having fought the king’s battle in vain, had gone home again to fight their own.

At Wyfern she found everything in rigid order, almost cataleptic repose.  How was it ever to be home again?  What new thing could restore the homefulness where the revered over-life had vanished?  And how shall the world be warmed and brightened to him who knows no greater or better man than himself therein—­no more skilful workman, no diviner thinker, no more godlike doer than himself?  And what can the universe have in it of home, of country, nay even of world, to him who cannot believe in a soul of souls, a heart of hearts?  I should fall out with the very beating of the heart within my bosom, did I not believe it the pulse of the infinite heart, for how else should it be heart of mine?  I made it not, and any moment it may seem to fail me, yet never, if it be what I think it, can it betray me.  It is no wonder then, that, with only memories of what had been to render it lovely in her eyes, Dorothy should have soon begun to feel the place lonely.

The very next morning after her rather late arrival, she sent to saddle Dick once more, called Marquis, and with no other attendant, set out to see what they had done to dear old Raglan.  Marquis had been chained up almost all the time they were in London, and freedom is blessed even to a dog:  Dick was ever joyful under his mistress, and now was merry with the keen invigorating air of a frosty December morning, and frolicsome amidst the early snow, which lay unusually thick on the ground, notwithstanding his hundred and twenty miles’ ride, for they had taken nearly a week to do it; so that between them they soon raised Dorothy’s spirits also, and she turned to her hopes, and grew cheerful.

This mood made her the less prepared to encounter the change that awaited her.  What a change it was!  While she approached, what with the trees left, and the towers, the rampart, and the outer shell of the courts—­little injured to the distant eye, she had not an idea of the devastation within.  But when she rode through one entrance after another with the gates torn from their hinges, crossed the moat by a mound of earth instead of the drawbridge, and rode through the open gateway, where the portcullises were wedged up in their grooves and their chains gone, into the paved court, she beheld a desolation, at sight of which her heart seemed to stand still in her bosom.  The rugged horror of the heaps of ruins was indeed softly covered with snow, but what this took from the desolation in harshness, it added in coldness and desertion and hopelessness.  She felt like one who looks for the corpse of his friend, and finds but his skeleton.