of a jeweller's
shop that adjoined the hotel, and halted gaily amongst the loungers.
Morton's first impulse was to hurry from the spot; his second impulse
arrested his step, and, a little apart, and half-hid beneath one of the
arches of the colonnade which adorns the street, the Outcast gazed upon.
the Heir. There was no comparison in the natural personal advantages of
the two young men; for Philip Morton, despite all the hardships of his
rough career, had now grown up and ripened into a rare perfection
of form and feature. His broad chest, his erect air, his lithe and
symmetrical length of limb, united, happily, the attributes of activity
and strength; and though there was no delicacy of youthful bloom upon
his dark cheek, and though lines which should have come later marred
its smoothness with the signs of care and thought, yet an expression of
intelligence and daring, equally beyond his years, and the evidence of
hardy, abstemious, vigorous health, served to show to the full advantage
the outline of features which, noble and regular, though stern and
masculine, the artist might have borrowed for his ideal of a young
Spartan arming for his first battle. Arthur, slight to feebleness, and
with the paleness, partly of constitution, partly of gay excess, on
his fair and clear complexion, had features far less symmetrical and
impressive than his cousin: but what then? All that are bestowed by
elegance of dress, the refinements of luxurious habit, the nameless
grace that comes from a mind and a manner polished, the one by literary
culture, the other by social intercourse, invested the person of the
heir with a fascination that rude Nature alone ever fails to give. And
about him there was a gaiety, an airiness of spirit, an atmosphere of
enjoyment which bespoke one who is in love with life.

"Why, this is lucky! I'm so glad to see you all!" said Arthur Beaufort,
with that silver-ringing tone and charming smile which are to the happy
spring of man what its music and its sunshine are to the spring of
earth. "You must dine with me at Verey's. I want something to rouse me
to-day; for I did not get home from the Salon* till four this morning."

*[The most celebrated gaming-house in Paris in the day before
gaming-houses were suppressed by the well-directed energy of the
government.]

"But you won?"

"Yes, Marsden. Hang it! I always win: I who could so well afford to
lose: I'm quite ashamed of my luck!"

"It is easy