by his flower-girl I understand any image of natural truth or beauty
for which, when we are living the artificial life of crowded streets, we
are too busy to give a penny."

"Take it as you please," said the minstrel, smiling and sighing at the
same time; "but I have not expressed in words that which I did mean half
so well as I have expressed it in my sketch-book."

"Ah! and how?" asked Kenelm.

"The image of my thought in the sketch, be it poetry or whatever you
prefer to call it, does not stand forlorn in the crowded streets: the
child stands on the brow of the green hill, with the city stretched in
confused fragments below, and, thoughtless of pennies and passers-by,
she is playing with the flowers she has gathered; but in play casting
them heavenward, and following them with heavenward eyes."

"Good!" muttered Kenelm, "good!" and then, after a long pause, he added,
in a still lower mutter, "Pardon me that remark of mine the other day
about a beefsteak. But own that I am right: what you call a sketch from
Nature is but a sketch of your own thought."

CHAPTER X.

THE child with the flower-ball had vanished from the brow of the hill;
sinking down amid the streets below, the rose-clouds had faded from the
horizon; and night was closing round, as the three men entered the
thick of the town. Tom pressed Kenelm to accompany him to his uncle's,
promising him a hearty welcome and bed and board, but Kenelm declined.
He entertained a strong persuasion that it would be better for the
desired effect on Tom's mind that he should be left alone with his
relations that night, but proposed that they should spend the next day
together, and agreed to call at the veterinary surgeon's in the morning.

When Tom quitted them at his uncle's door, Kenelm said to the minstrel,
"I suppose you are going to some inn; may I accompany you? We can sup
together, and I should like to hear you talk upon poetry and Nature."

"You flatter me much; but I have friends in the town, with whom I lodge,
and they are expecting me. Do you not observe that I have changed my
dress? I am not known here as the 'Wandering Minstrel.'"

Kenelm glanced at the man's attire, and for the first time observed
the change. It was still picturesque in its way, but it was such as
gentlemen of the highest rank frequently wear in the country,--the
knickerbocker costume,--very neat, very new, and complete, to the
square-toed shoes with their latchets and buckles.