The Queen of Hearts | Page 4

from a town, and the
village to which we send for our letters is three miles off.

My eldest brother, Owen, was brought up to the Church. All the prime
of his life was passed in a populous London parish. For more years than
I now like to reckon up, he worked unremittingly, in defiance of failing
health and adverse fortune, amid the multitudinous misery of the
London poor; and he would, in all probability, have sacrificed his life
to his duty long before the present time if The Glen Tower had not
come into his possession through two unexpected deaths in the elder
and richer branch of our family. This opening to him of a place of rest
and refuge saved his life. No man ever drew breath who better deserved
the gifts of fortune; for no man, I sincerely believe, more tender of
others, more diffident of himself, more gentle, more generous, and
more simple-hearted than Owen, ever walked this earth.
My second brother, Morgan, started in life as a doctor, and learned all
that his profession could teach him at home and abroad. He realized a
moderate independence by his practice, beginning in one of our large
northern towns and ending as a physician in London; but, although he
was well known and appreciated among his brethren, he failed to gain
that sort of reputation with the public which elevates a man into the
position of a great doctor. The ladies never liked him. In the first place,
he was ugly (Morgan will excuse me for mentioning this); in the
second place, he was an inveterate smoker, and he smelled of tobacco
when he felt languid pulses in elegant bedrooms; in the third place, he
was the most formidably outspoken teller of the truth as regarded
himself, his profession, and his patients, that ever imperiled the social
standing of the science of medicine. For these reasons, and for others
which it is not necessary to mention, he never pushed his way, as a
doctor, into the front ranks, and he never cared to do so. About a year
after Owen came into possession of The Glen Tower, Morgan
discovered that he had saved as much money for his old age as a
sensible man could want; that he was tired of the active pursuit--or, as
he termed it, of the dignified quackery of his profession; and that it was
only common charity to give his invalid brother a companion who
could physic him for nothing, and so prevent him from getting rid of
his money in the worst of all possible ways, by wasting it on doctors'
bills. In a week after Morgan had arrived at these conclusions, he was
settled at The Glen Tower; and from that time, opposite as their

characters were, my two elder brothers lived together in their lonely
retreat, thoroughly understanding, and, in their very different ways,
heartily loving one another.
Many years passed before I, the youngest of the three--christened by
the unmelodious name of Griffith--found my way, in my turn, to the
dreary old house, and the sheltering quiet of the Welsh hills. My career
in life had led me away from my brothers; and even now, when we are
all united, I have still ties and interests to connect me with the outer
world which neither Owen nor Morgan possess.
I was brought up to the Bar. After my first year's study of the law, I
wearied of it, and strayed aside idly into the brighter and more
attractive paths of literature. My occasional occupation with my pen
was varied by long traveling excursions in all parts of the Continent;
year by year my circle of gay friends and acquaintances increased, and
I bade fair to sink into the condition of a wandering desultory man,
without a fixed purpose in life of any sort, when I was saved by what
has saved many another in my situation--an attachment to a good and a
sensible woman. By the time I had reached the age of thirty-five, I had
done what neither of my brothers had done before me--I had married.
As a single man, my own small independence, aided by what little
additions to it I could pick up with my pen, had been sufficient for my
wants; but with marriage and its responsibilities came the necessity for
serious exertion. I returned to my neglected studies, and grappled
resolutely, this time, with the intricate difficulties of the law. I was
called to the Bar. My wife's father aided me with his interest, and I
started into practice without difficulty and without delay.
For the next twenty years my married life was a scene of happiness and
prosperity, on which I now look back with a grateful tenderness that no
words of mine