days. A change from the
orderly domesticities of his sister's house had become necessary to
him, and he looked forward with satisfaction to the evening he had
planned.

At a turn of the road, which, as he well remembered, had been a
frequent limit of his nurse-guarded walk five-and-twenty years ago, his
eye fell upon a garden gate marked with the white inscription,
"Pear-tree Cottage." It brought him to a pause. This must be Mrs.
Wade's dwelling; the intellectual lady had quite slipped out of his
thoughts, and with amusement he stopped to examine the cottage as well
as dusk permitted. The front was overgrown with some creeper; the low
roof made an irregular line against the sky one window on the
ground-floor showed light through a red blind. Mrs. Wade, he had
learnt, enjoyed but a small income; the interior was probably very
modest. There she sat behind the red blind and meditated on the
servitude of her sex. Repressing an inclination to laugh aloud, he
stepped briskly forward.

Rickstead consisted of twenty or thirty scattered houses; an ancient,
slumberous place, remarkable chiefly for its time-honoured inn, which
stood at the crossing of two high roads. The landlord had received
notice that two gentlemen would dine under his roof, and the unwonted
event was making quite a stir in the hostelry. Quarrier walked in at
about a quarter-past six, savoury odours saluted him from the
threshold. Glazzard had not yet arrived, but in less than five minutes
a private carriage drew up to the door, and the friends hailed each
other.

The room prepared for them lay well apart from the bar, with its small
traffic. A great fire had been blazing for an hour or two; and the
table, not too large, was laid with the best service the house could
afford--nothing very grand, to be sure, in these days of its decline,
but the general effect was inviting to men with a good appetite and
some historical imagination.

"A happy idea of yours!" said Glazzard, as he rubbed his hands before
the great hearth. "Are we to begin with a cup of sack?"

Punctually the meal was served; the liquor provided therewith, though
of small dignity, did no discredit to the host. They talked and laughed
over old Grammar School days, old acquaintances long since dead or lost
to sight, boyish ambitions and achievements. Dinner dismissed, a bottle
of whisky on the table, a kettle steaming by the fire, Denzil's pipe
and Glazzard's cigar comfortably glowing, there c