the greatest of
modern kings. The peace of 1763 had left Prussia in the quiet enjoyment
of the glory she had obtained, and the young Englishman took the
advantage it afforded him of seeing as a traveller, not despoiler, the
rest of Europe.

The adventure and the excitement of travel pleased and left him even
now uncertain whether or not his present return to England would be for
long. He had not been a week returned, and to this part of his native
country he had hastened at once.

He checked his horse as he now past the memorable sign, that yet swung
before the door of Peter Dealtry; and there, under the shade of the
broad tree, now budding into all its tenderest verdure, a pedestrian
wayfarer sate enjoying the rest and coolness of his shelter. Our
horseman cast a look at the open door, across which, in the bustle
of housewifery, female forms now and then glanced and vanished, and
presently he saw Peter himself saunter forth to chat with the traveller
beneath his tree. And Peter Dealtry was the same as ever, only he seemed
perhaps shorter and thinner than of old, as if Time did not so much
break as wear mine host's slender person gradually away.

The horseman gazed for a moment, but observing Peter return the gaze, he
turned aside his head, and putting his horse into a canter, soon passed
out of cognizance of the Spotted Dog.

He now came in sight of the neat white cottage of the old Corporal, and
there, leaning over the pale, a crutch under one arm, and his friendly
pipe in one corner of his shrewd mouth, was the Corporal himself.
Perched upon the railing in a semi-doze, the ears down, the eyes closed,
sat a large brown cat: poor Jacobina, it was not thyself! death spares
neither cat nor king; but thy virtues lived in thy grandchild; and thy
grandchild, (as age brings dotage,) was loved even more than thee by the
worthy Corporal. Long may thy race flourish, for at this day it is not
extinct. Nature rarely inflicts barrenness on the feline tribe; they are
essentially made for love, and love's soft cares, and a cat's lineage
outlives the lineage of kaisars.

At the sound of hoofs the Corporal turned his head, and he looked long
and wistfully at the horseman, as, relaxing his horse's pace into a
walk, our traveller rode slowly on.

"'Fore George," muttered the Corporal, "a fine man--a very fine man;
'bout my inches--augh!"

A smile, but a very faint smile, crossed the lip of the horseman, as he
gazed on the figur