he
literary adviser appeared. He was dressed with all the finish his
wardrobe allowed, and his face beamed with gratification; it was rapture
to him to enter the presence of these three girls, one of whom he had,
more suo, held in romantic remembrance since his one meeting with her at
Jasper's old lodgings. His eyes melted with tenderness as he approached
Dora and saw her smile of gracious recognition. By Maud he was
profoundly impressed. Marian inspired him with no awe, but he fully
appreciated the charm of her features and her modest gravity. After all,
it was to Dora that his eyes turned again most naturally. He thought
her exquisite, and, rather than be long without a glimpse of her, he
contented himself with fixing his eyes on the hem of her dress and the
boot-toe that occasionally peeped from beneath it.

As was to be expected in such a circle, conversation soon turned to the
subject of literary struggles.

'I always feel it rather humiliating,' said Jasper, 'that I have gone
through no very serious hardships. It must be so gratifying to say to
young fellows who are just beginning:

"Ah, I remember when I was within an ace of starving to death," and
then come out with Grub Street reminiscences of the most appalling kind.
Unfortunately, I have always had enough to eat.'

'I haven't,' exclaimed Whelpdale. 'I have lived for five days on a few
cents' worth of pea-nuts in the States.'

'What are pea-nuts, Mr Whelpdale?' asked Dora.

Delighted with the question, Whelpdale described that undesirable
species of food.

'It was in Troy,' he went on, 'Troy, N.Y. To think that a man should
live on pea-nuts in a town called Troy!'

'Tell us those adventures,' cried Jasper. 'It's a long time since I
heard them, and the girls will enjoy it vastly.'

Dora looked at him with such good-humoured interest that the traveller
needed no further persuasion.

'It came to pass in those days,' he began, 'that I inherited from my
godfather a small, a very small, sum of money. I was making strenuous
efforts to write for magazines, with absolutely no encouragement.
As everybody was talking just then of the Centennial Exhibition at
Philadelphia, I conceived the brilliant idea of crossing the Atlantic,
in the hope that I might find valuable literary material at the
Exhibition--or Exposition, as they called it--and elsewhere. I won't
trouble you with an account of how I lived whilst I still had money;
sufficient that no one would acc