misses--curse me, no! She's all fire and blood and high mettle--a woman, sir glorious--divine--damme, sir, a black-browed goddess--a positive plum!"

"Sir Richard," said I, "should I ever contemplate marriage, which is most improbable, my wife must be sweet and shy, gentle-eyed and soft of voice, instead of your bold, strong-armed, horse-galloping creature; above all, she must be sweet and clinging--"

"Sweet and sticky, oh, the devil! Hark to the boy, Grainger," cried Sir Richard, "hark to him--and one glance of the glorious Sefton's bright eyes--one glance only, Grainger, and he'd be at her feet--on his knees--on his confounded knees, sir!"

"The question is, how do you propose to maintain yourself in the future?" said Mr. Grainger at this point; "life under your altered fortunes must prove necessarily hard, Mr. Peter."

"And yet, sir," I answered, "a fortune with a wife tagged on to it must prove a very mixed blessing after all; and then again, there may be a certain amount of satisfaction in stepping into a dead man's shoes, but I, very foolishly, perhaps, have a hankering for shoes of my own. Surely there must be some position in life that I am competent to fill, some position that would maintain me honorably and well; I flatter myself that my years at Oxford were not altogether barren of result--"

"By no means," put in Sir Richard; "you won the High Jump, I believe?"

"Sir, I did," said I; "also 'Throwing the Hammer.'"

"And spent two thousand pounds per annum?" said Sir Richard.

"Sir, I did, but between whiles managed to do fairly well in the Tripos, to finish a new and original translation of Quintilian, another of Petronius Arbiter and also a literal rendering into the English of the Memoirs of the Sieur de Brantome."

"For none of which you have hitherto found a publisher?" inquired Mr. Grainger.

"Not as yet," said I, "but I have great hopes of my Brantome, as you are probably aware this is the first time he has ever been translated into the English."

"Hum!" said Sir Richard, "ha!--and in the meantime what do you intend to do?"

"On that head I have as yet come to no definite conclusion, sir," I answered.

"I have been wondering," began Mr. Grainger, somewhat diffidently, "if you would care to accept a position in my office. To be sure the remuneration would be small at first and quite insignificant in comparison to the income you have been in the receipt of."

"But it would have been money earned," said I, "which is infinitely preferable to that for which we never turn a hand--at least, I think so."

"Then you accept?"

"No, sir," said I, "though I am grateful to you, and thank you most sincerely for your offer, yet I have never felt the least inclination to the practice of law; where there is no interest one's work must necessarily suffer, and I have no desire that your business should be injured by any carelessness of mine."

"What do you think of a private tutorship?"

"It would suit me above all things were it not for the fact that the genus 'Boy' is the most aggravating of all animals, and that I am conscious of a certain shortness of temper at times, which might result in pain to my pupil, loss of dignity to myself, and general unpleasantness to all concerned--otherwise a private tutorship would suit most admirably."

Here Sir Richard took another pinch of snuff and sat frowning up at the ceiling, while Mr. Grainger began tying up that document which had so altered my prospects. As for me, I crossed to the window and stood staring out at the evening. Everywhere were trees tinted by the rosy glow of sunset, trees that stirred sleepily in the gentle wind, and far away I could see that famous highway, built and paved for the march of Roman Legions, winding away to where it vanished over distant Shooter's Hill.

"And pray," said Sir Richard, still frowning at the ceiling, "what do you propose to do with yourself?"

Now, as I looked out upon this fair evening, I became, of a sudden, possessed of an overmastering desire, a great longing for field and meadow and hedgerow, for wood and coppice and shady stream, for sequestered inns and wide, wind-swept heaths, and ever the broad highway in front. Thus I answered Sir Richard's question unhesitatingly, and without turning from the window:

"I shall go, sir, on a walking tour through Kent and Surrey into Devonshire, and thence probably to Cornwall."

"And with a miserable ten guineas in your pocket? Preposterous --absurd!" retorted Sir Richard.

"On the contrary, sir," said I, "the more I ponder the project, the more enamored of it I become."

"And when your money is all gone--how then?"

"I shall turn my hand to some useful employment," said I; "digging, for instance."

"Digging!" ejaculated Sir Richard, "and you a scholar--and what is more, a gentleman!"

"My dear Sir Richard," said I, "that all depends upon how you would define a gentleman. To me he would appear, of late years, to have degenerated into a creature whose chief end in life is to spend money he has never earned, to reproduce his species with a deplorable frequency and promiscuity, habitually to drink more than is good for him, and, between whiles, to fill in his time hunting, cock-fighting, or watching entranced while two men pound each other unrecognizable in the prize ring. Occasionally he has the good taste to break his neck in the hunting field, or get himself gloriously shot in a duel, but the generality live on to a good old age, turn their attention to matters political and, following the dictates of their class, damn reform with a whole-hearted fervor equalled only by their rancor."

"Deuce take me!" ejaculated Sir Richard feebly, while Mr. Grainger buried his face in his pocket-handkerchief.

"To my mind," I ended, "the man who sweats over a spade or follows the tail of a plough is far nobler and higher in the Scheme of Things than any of your young 'bloods' driving his coach and four to Brighton to the danger of all and sundry."

Sir Richard slowly got up out of his chair, staring at me open-mouthed. "Good God!" he exclaimed at last, "the boy's a Revolutionary."

I smiled and shrugged my shoulders, but, before I could speak, Mr. Grainger interposed, sedate and solemn as usual:

"Referring to your proposed tour, Mr. Peter, when do you expect to start?"

"Early to-morrow morning, sir."

"I will not attempt to dissuade you, well knowing the difficulty," said he, with a faint smile, "but a letter addressed to me at Lincoln's Inn will always find me and receive my most earnest attention." So saying, he rose, bowed, and having shaken my hand, left the room, closing the door behind him.

"Peter," exclaimed the baronet, striding up and down, "Peter, you are a fool, sir, a hot-headed, self-sufficient, pragmatical young fool, sir, curse me!"

"I am sorry you should think so," I answered.

"And," he continued, regarding me with a defiant eye, "I shall expect you to draw upon me for any sum that--that you may require for the present--friendship's sake--boyhood and--and all that sort of thing, and--er--oh, damme, you understand, Peter?"

"Sir Richard," said I, grasping his unwilling hand, "I--I thank you from the bottom of my heart."

"Pooh, Peter, dammit!" said he, snatching his hand away and thrusting it hurriedly into his pocket, out of farther reach.

"Thank you, sir," I reiterated; "be sure that should I fall ill or any unforeseen calamity happen to me, I will most gladly, most gratefully accept your generous aid in the spirit in which it is offered, but--"

"But?" exclaimed Sir Richard.

"Until then--"

"Oh, the devil!" said Sir Richard, and ringing the bell ordered his horse to be brought to the door, and thereafter stood with his back to the empty fireplace, his fists thrust down into his pockets, frowning heavily and with a fixed intentness at the nearest armchair.

Sir Richard Anstruther is tall and broad, ruddy of face, with a prominent nose and great square chin whose grimness is offset by a mouth singularly sweet and tender, and the kindly light of blue eyes; he is in very truth a gentleman. Indeed, as he stood there in his plain blue coat with its high roll collar and shining silver buttons, his spotless moleskins and heavy, square-toed riding boots, he was as fair a type as might be of the English country gentleman. It is such men as he, who, fearless upon the littered quarterdecks of reeling battleships, undismayed amid the smoke and death of stricken fields, their duty well and nobly done; have turned their feet homewards to pass their latter days amid their turnips and cabbages, beating their swords into pruning-hooks, and glad enough to do it.