CHAPTER VII.
AN ALLUSION TO THE PAST.
Ah! there are memories that will not vanish;
Thoughts of the past we have no power to banish;
To show the heart how powerless mere will,
For we may suffer, and yet struggle still.
It is not at our choice that we forget,
That is a power no science teaches yet;
The heart may be a dark and closed up tomb;
But memory stands a ghost amid the gloom!
"I am sorry," said Lord Norbourne, "that your protégé, Walter Maynard, should be, what I suppose he would call, so patriotic. Young men think it such an easy thing to set the world to rights. Why do you not talk him into more rational notions?"
"Truly, my dear uncle," replied Courtenaye, "it is no such easy matter reasoning with one at once firm and enthusiastic in his opinions."
