ment, wagged his
tail in triumph and returned to his master,--perhaps, in parliamentary
phrase, to "report proceedings and ask leave to sit again."

"I wonder," soliloquized Percival St. John, "what that poor fellow is
thinking of? Perhaps he is poor; indeed, no doubt of it, now I look
again. And I so rich! I should like to--Hem! let's see what he's made
of."

Herewith Percival approached, and with all a boy's half-bashful,
half-saucy frankness, said: "A fine prospect, sir." The pedestrian
started, and threw a rapid glance over the brilliant figure that
accosted him. Percival St. John was not to be abashed by stern looks;
but that glance might have abashed many a more experienced man. The
glance of a squire upon a corn-law missionary, of a Crockford dandy upon
a Regent Street tiger, could not have been more disdainful.

"Tush!" said the pedestrian, rudely, and turned upon his heel.

Percival coloured, and--shall we own it?--was boy enough to double his
fist. Little would he have been deterred by the brawn of those great
arms and the girth of that Herculean chest, if he had been quite sure
that it was a proper thing to resent pugilistically so discourteous a
monosyllable. The "tush!" stuck greatly in his throat. But the man, now
removed to the farther verge of the hill, looked so tranquil and so lost
in thought that the short-lived anger died.

"And after all, if I were as poor as he looks, I dare say I should be
just as proud," muttered Percival. "However, it's his own fault if he
goes to London on foot, when I might at least have given him a lift.
Come, Beau, sir."

With his face still a little flushed, and his hat unconsciously cocked
fiercely on one side, Percival sauntered back to his britzska.

As in a whirl of dust the light carriage was borne by the four posters
down the hill, the pedestrian turned for an instant from the view before
to the cloud behind, and muttered: "Ay, a fine prospect for the rich,--a
noble field for the poor!" The tone in which those words were said told
volumes; there spoke the pride, the hope, the energy, the ambition which
make youth laborious, manhood prosperous, age renowned.

The stranger then threw himself on the sward, and continued his silent
and intent contemplation till the clouds grew red in the west. When,
then, he rose, his eye was bright, his mien erect, and a smile, playing
round his firm, full lips, stole the moody sternness from his hard
face. Throwing his knapsack