Their family home seemed so vast and void, desolate at this hour --- the garden was gloomy, rendered grey by the departing sun. A sorrowful indifference to existence had struck most of his family; chiefly his sisters, whose melancholy rendered Henry's heart dead in his chest. He had full leisure to look upon his life; he viewed his own future with glee, but a suspicion rankled in his chest sentiment was not shared. Hallie, his youngest sister, seated to his right, had little mirth now -- the hopes which are dear to youth, clouded and veiled. Henry had sought her company, in the hope of his own light disrupting her shadows. "A great desire to travel has struck me as of late; I have thought of Spain, or perhaps France, as spots of respite for a mind like mine. And should permission for company be give, I believe it would be only the assertion of a certain spirited young woman that she not be seen in public with her brother, that would stop her from joining him." Long had he dreamed of a pilgrimage to Rome, to quit London and sojourn to Paris -- to leave behind a dethroned patriarch, and his plaything. "But it would have to wait; for we both are in need of marriages. Have you not a group of suitors you ought not to ignore? As for me, my bones crack more and more with each time; it is time to get a wife."Â
