oyages), whistled
to a spaniel dozing by his side, and descended lightly. Light was the
step of the young man, and merry was the bark of the dog, as it
chased from the road the startled sparrow, rising high into the clear
air,--favourites of Nature both, man and dog. You had but to glance at
Percival St. John to know at once that he was of the race that toils
not; the assured step spoke confidence in the world's fair smile. No
care for the morrow dimmed the bold eye and the radiant bloom.

About the middle height,--his slight figure, yet undeveloped, seemed
not to have attained to its full growth,--the darkening down only just
shaded a cheek somewhat sunburned, though naturally fair, round which
locks black as jet played sportively in the fresh air; about him
altogether there was the inexpressible charm of happy youth. He scarcely
looked sixteen, though above four years older; but for his firm though
careless step, and the open fearlessness of his frank eye, you might
have almost taken him for a girl in men's clothes,--not from effeminacy
of feature, but from the sparkling bloom of his youth, and from his
unmistakable newness to the cares and sins of man. A more delightful
vision of ingenuous boyhood opening into life under happy auspices never
inspired with pleased yet melancholy interest the eye of half-envious,
half-pitying age.

"And that," mused Percival St. John,--"that is London! Oh for the Diable
Boiteux to unroof me those distant houses, and show me the pleasures
that lurk within! Ah, what long letters I shall have to write home! How
the dear old captain will laugh over them, and how my dear good mother
will put down her work and sigh! Home!--um, I miss it already. How
strange and grim, after all, the huge city seems!"

His glove fell to the ground, and his spaniel mumbled it into shreds.
The young man laughed, and throwing himself on the grass, played gayly
with the dog.

"Fie, Beau, sir, fie! gloves are indigestible. Restrain your appetite,
and we'll lunch together at the Clarendon."

At this moment there arrived at the same patch of greensward a
pedestrian some years older than Percival St. John,--a tall, muscular,
raw-boned, dust-covered, travel-stained pedestrian; one of your
pedestrians in good earnest,--no amateur in neat gambroon manufactured
by Inkson, who leaves his carriage behind him and walks on with his
fishing-rod by choice, but a sturdy wanderer, with thick shoes and
strapless trousers, a