out of his way to be so civil to an old fellow like me. A
young man about town must have pleasanter modes of passing his day than
inspecting hydraulic rams and reaping-machines. Clever they allow him to
be. Yes, decidedly clever, and not offensively clever,--practical."

Sir Peter found Travers in the dining-room with his daughter, Mrs.
Campion, and Lady Glenalvon. Travers was one of those men rare in middle
age, who are more often to be found in their drawing-room than in their
private study; he was fond of female society; and perhaps it was this
predilection which contributed to preserve in him the charm of good
breeding and winning manners. The two men had not met for many years;
not indeed since Travers was at the zenith of his career of fashion,
and Sir Peter was one of those pleasant _dilettanti_ and half humoristic
conversationalists who become popular and courted diners-out.

Sir Peter had originally been a moderate Whig because his father
had been one before him; but he left the Whig party with the Duke of
Richmond, Mr. Stanley (afterwards Lord Derby), and others, when it
seemed to him that that party had ceased to be moderate.

Leopold Travers had, as a youth in the Guards, been a high Tory, but,
siding with Sir Robert Peel on the repeal of the Corn Laws, remained
with the Peelites after the bulk of the Tory party had renounced the
guidance of their former chief, and now went with these Peelites in
whatever direction the progress of the age might impel their strides in
advance of Whigs and in defiance of Tories.

However, it is not the politics of these two gentlemen that are in
question now. As I have just said, they had not met for many years.
Travers was very little changed. Sir Peter recognized him at a glance;
Sir Peter was much changed, and Travers hesitated before, on hearing
his name announced, he felt quite sure that it was the right Sir Peter
towards whom he advanced, and to whom he extended his cordial hand.
Travers preserved the colour of his hair and the neat proportions of his
figure, and was as scrupulously well dressed as in his dandy days. Sir
Peter, originally very thin and with fair locks and dreamy blue eyes,
had now become rather portly,--at least towards the middle of him,--and
very gray; had long ago taken to spectacles; his dress, too, was very
old-fashioned, and made by a country tailor. He looked quite as much
a gentleman as Travers did; quite perhaps as healthy, allowing for
diffe