pretext to begin. Start at
once--to-day. Just say, 'I'll have to show Calvert the lions; he'll want
to hunt up galleries,' and such-like."

"Hush! here comes my wife. Fanny, let me present to you one of my oldest
friends, Calvert It's a name you have often heard from me."

The young lady--she was not more than twenty--was pleasing-looking and
well mannered. Indeed, Calvert was amazed to see her so unlike what he
expected; she was neither pretentious nor shy; and, had his friend not
gone into the question of pedigree, was there anything to mark a class
in life other than his own. While they talked together they were joined
by her father, who, however, more than realised the sketch drawn by
Barnard.

He was a morose, down-looking old fellow, with a furtive expression, and
a manner of distrust about him that showed itself in various ways. From
the first, though Calvert set vigorously to work to win his favour, he
looked with a sort of misgiving at him. He spoke very little, but in
that little there were no courtesies wasted; and when Barnard whispered,
"You had better ask him to dine with us, the invitation will come better
from you!" the reply was, "I won't; do you hear that? I won't."

"But he's an old brother-officer of mine, Sir; we served several years
together."

"The worse company yours, then."

"I say, Calvert," cried Barnard, aloud, "I must give you a peep at our
gay doings here. I'll take you a drive round the town, and out of the
Porta Orientale, and if we should not be back at dinner-time, Fanny--"

"We'll dine without you, that's all!" said the old man; while, taking
his daughter's hand, he led her out of the room.

"I say, Bob, I'd not change with you, even for the difference," said
Calvert.

"I never saw him so bad before," said the other, sheepishly.

"Because you never tried him! Hitherto you have been a spaniel, getting
kicked and cuffed, and rather liking it; but, now that the sight of an
old friend has rallied you to a faint semblance of your former self,
you are shocked and horrified. You made a bad start, Bob; that was the
mistake. You ought to have begun by making him feel the immeasurable
distance there lay between him and a gentleman; not only in dress,
language, and behaviour, but in every sentiment and feeling. Having done
this, he would have tacitly submitted to ways that were not his own, by
conceding that they might be those of a class he had never belonged to.
You might, in short