In a few minutes Richard arrived at the conclusion that he would be all right as soon as he got among the wine-bins of the library. He did not reflect how little of a man is he whose sense of well-being is at the mercy of a Scotch mist or a cloudy twilight. Neither did he put to himself the question whether the mending of the old leather bottles in which lie stored the varied wines of the human spirit, ought to be labour and gladness enough for the soul of a man. But how can we wonder when he would have no father, and claimed the black nothingness of the universe as his mother? Yet was it the presence all the time of that father he refused that made it possible for him to drink the water of any poorest little well of salvation that sprang in the field of his life. and such a well was his work among books.

He went to bed and, after a dreamless night, rose to find the world overflowed with bliss. The sun was at his best, and every water drop on the grass was shining all the colours of the rainbow. Surely the gems that are dug from the earth have their prototype in the dewdrops that lie on its surface!

The whole world lay before Richard as his inheritance—the sunlight gave it to him. What was it to Richard that the park, its trees, its grass, its dewdrops, its cattle, its shadows, all belonged to sir Wilton? He never thought of the fact. He felt them his own. Was the soft, clear, fresh, damp air, with all the unreachable soul of it, not his because it was sir Wilton’s?

The highest property, Dante says, increases to each by the sharing of it with others. But the common mind does not care for such property. Did the blue, uplifted sky that spoke to the sky inside Richard belong to sir Wilton? Sir Wilton could not claim it because he did not care for it, heard no sound of the speech it uttered. He could not prevent Richard from possessing Mortgrange in a way he himself did not and could not possess it. But neither yet were all these things Richard’s in the full eternal way. Nature was a noble lady whose long visit made him glad, but she was not yet at home in his house.

The setting sun had made Richard sad. His resurrection made him glad! He dressed quickly and went to find his way out of the house. After a lengthy walk he made his way to breakfast in the servants’ hall. Afterward he asked one of the men to let him know when Mr. Lestrange would see him, and went to his room.

Richard had not yet become aware of any moral pressure. What is called a good conscience is often but a dull one that gives no trouble when it ought to bark loudest. Richard’s was not of that sort, yet was very much at ease. He had done little that he knew to be bad and very little that he had to be ashamed of. Partly through the care of Jane and John Tuke, he had never gotten into what is called bad company. The condition of Richard’s inner being was good, rather vacant, unselfish, and yet self-contented, if not self-satisfied. He had a natural cleanliness, a natural sense of the becoming, which did much to keep him from evil. The books he chose were of the better sort. If he did not set himself with any conscious effort to rise above himself, he did do something against sinking below himself.