Page:Romance & Reality 3.pdf/327

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"O Jupiter! how weary are my spirits!" .

winding-up of a novel is like winding up a skein of silk, or casting up a sum—all the ends must be made neat, all the numbers accounted for, at last. Luckily, in the closing chapter a little explanation goes a great way; and a character, like a rule of morality, may be dismissed in a sentence. Cecil Spenser married his cousin, Helen Morland: it was very satisfactory to find somebody who looked up to him entirely. He repaired the beautiful old abbey, which his father had allowed to go to ruin—built a library and a picture- gallery—threw open his preserves—refused to stand for the county—and if not happy, believed he was, and in such a case belief is as good as reality. He practised what Lord Mandeville theorised, who, in despite of his