nd swore in a very different mood from that in which
he smiled at me across the supper-table the night before.

"We're waiting for that boy of Norcott's, I vow," said an old fellow
with a gray moustache; and I marked him out for future recognition.

Unlike my first journey, where all seemed confusion, trouble, and
annoyance, I now saw only pleasant faces, and people bent on enjoyment.
We were on the great tourist road of Europe, and it seemed as though
every one was bound on some errand of amusement. Eccles, too, was a
pleasant contrast to the courier who took charge of me on my first
journey. Nothing could be more genial than his manner. He treated me
with a perfect equality, and by that greatest of all flatteries to one
of my age, induced me to believe that I was actually companionable to
himself.

I will not pretend that he was an instructive companion.

He had neither knowledge of history nor feeling for art, and rather
amused himself with sneering at both, and quizzing such of our
fellow-travellers as the practice was safe with. But he was always
gay, always in excellent spirits, ready to make light of the passing
annoyances of the road, and, as he said himself, he always carried a
quart-bottle of condensed sunshine with him against a rainy day; and, of
my own knowledge, I can say his supply seemed inexhaustible.

His cheery manner, his bright good looks, and his invariable good-humor
won upon every one, and the sourest and least genial people thawed into
some show of warmth under his contagious pleasantry.

He did not care in what direction we went, and would have left
it entirely to me to decide, had I been able to determine. All he
stipulated for was: "No barbarism, no Oberland or glacier humbug. No
Saxon Switzerland abominations. So long as we travel in a crowd, and
meet good cookery every day, you 'll find me charming."

Into this philosophy he inducted me. "Make life pleasant, Digby;
never go in search of annoyances. Duns and disagreeables will come of
themselves, and it's no bad fun dodging them. It's only a fool ever
keeps their company."

A more shameless immorality might have revolted me, but this peddling
sort of wickedness, this half-jesting with right and wrong,--giving
to morals the aspect of a game in which a certain kind of address was
practicable,--was very seductive to one of my age and temper. I fancied,
too, that I was becoming a consummate man of the world, and his praises
of my profic