r
a landing on an enemy's shore as ever was done."

"I must say I pity the girls, and they look as if they felt all the
mortification of their position. And yet, they'll come to the same sort
of thing themselves one of these days, as naturally as one of us will to
wearing very easy boots and loose-fitting waistcoats."

As he said this, the new arrivals had passed up from the landing-place,
and entered the hotel.

"Let us at least be merciful in our criticisms on foreigners, while we
exhibit to their eyes such national specimens as these!" said Calvert
"For my own-part, I believe, that from no one source have we as a people
derived so much of sneer and shame, as from that which includes within
it what is called the unprotected female."

"What if we were to find out that they were Belgians, or Dutch, or
Americans? or better still, what if they should chance to be remarkably
good sort of English? I conclude we shall meet them at supper."

"Yes, and there goes the bell for that gathering, which on the present
occasion will be a thin one. They're all gone off to that fair at
Lahnech." And so saying, Calvert drew nigh a glass, and made one of
those extempore toilets which young men with smart moustaches are
accustomed to perform before presenting themselves to strangers. Loyd
merely took his hat and walked to the door.

"There! that ought to be enough, surely, for all reasonable
captivation!" said he, laughingly.

"Perhaps you are right; besides, I suspect in the present case it is a
mere waste of ammunition;" and, with a self-approving smile, he nodded
to his image in the glass, and followed his friend.

One line at this place will serve to record that Calvert was very
good looking; blue-eyed, blond-whiskered, Saxon-looking withal; erect
carriage and stately air, which are always taken as favourable types
of our English blood. Perhaps a certain over-consciousness of these
personal advantages, perhaps a certain conviction of the success that
had attended these gifts, gave him what in slang phrase, is called a
"tigerish" air: but it was plain to see that he had acquired his ease of
manner in good company, and that his pretension was rather the stamp of
a class than of an individual.

Loyd was a pale, delicate-looking youth, with dark eyes set in the
deepest of orbits, that imparted sadness to features in themselves
sufficiently grave. He seemed what he was, an overworked student, a man
who had sacrificed health to t