But,
in fact, Mr. Eldredge was not much in the habit of walking about the
grounds; and there were hours of every day, during which it was
altogether improbable that he would have emerged from his own apartments
in the manor-house. These were the hours, therefore, when Middleton most
frequented the estate; although, to say the truth, he would gladly have
so timed his visits as to meet and form an acquaintance with the lonely
lord of this beautiful property, his own kinsman, though with so many
ages of dark oblivion between. For Middleton had not that feeling of
infinite distance in the relationship, which he would have had if his
branch of the family had continued in England, and had not intermarried
with the other branch, through such a long waste of years; he rather felt
as if he were the original emigrant who, long resident on a foreign
shore, had now returned, with a heart brimful of tenderness, to revisit
the scenes of his youth, and renew his tender relations with those who
shared his own blood.
There was not, however, much in what he heard of the character of the
present possessor of the estate--or indeed in the strong family
characteristic that had become hereditary--to encourage him to attempt
any advances. It is very probable that the religion of Mr. Eldredge, as a
Catholic, may have excited a prejudice against him, as it certainly had
insulated the family, in a great degree, from the sympathies of the
neighborhood.
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