oor creature, sir.'

Evan consented. I am afraid also it was the landlady's flattering speech
made him, without reckoning his means, add that the young mother and her
child must be considered under his care, and their expenses charged to
him. The landlady was obliged to think him a wealthy as well as a noble
youth, and admiringly curtsied.

Mr. John Raikes and Mr. Evan Harrington then strolled into the air, and
through a long courtyard, with brewhouse and dairy on each side, and a
pleasant smell of baking bread, and dogs winking in the sun, cats at the
corners of doors, satisfied with life, and turkeys parading, and fowls,
strutting cocks, that overset the dignity of Mr. Raikes by awakening his
imitative propensities. Certain white-capped women, who were washing
in a tub, laughed, and one observed: 'He's for all the world like the
little bantam cock stickin' 'self up in a crow against the Spaniar'.'
And this, and the landlady's marked deference to Evan, induced Mr.
Raikes contemptuously to glance at our national blindness to the true
diamond, and worship of the mere plumes in which a person is dressed.

They passed a pretty flower-garden, and entering a smooth-shorn meadow,
beheld the downs beautifully clear under sunlight and slowly-sailing
images of cloud. At the foot of the downs, on a plain of grass, stood a
white booth topped by a flag, which signalled that on that spot Fallow
field and Beckley were contending.

'A singular old gentleman! A very singular old gentleman, that!' Raikes
observed, following an idea that had been occupying him. 'We did wrong
to miss him. We ought to have waylaid him in the morning. Never miss a
chance, Harrington.'

'What chance?' Evan inquired.

'Those old gentlemen are very odd,' Jack pursued, 'very strange. He
wouldn't have judged me by my attire. Admetus' flocks I guard, yet am a
God! Dress is nothing to those old cocks. He's an eccentric. I know
it; I can see it. He 's a corrective of Cudford, who is abhorrent to my
soul. To give you an instance, now, of what those old boys will do--I
remember my father taking me, when I was quite a youngster, to a tavern
he frequented, and we met one night just such an old fellow as this;
and the waiter told us afterwards that he noticed me particularly.
He thought me a very remarkable boy--predicted great things. For some
reason or other my father never took me there again. I remember our
having a Welsh rarebit there for supper, and when the