l houses, and seldom troubled
to reflect a passing stranger's form. There is yet, in the Temple,
something of a clerkly monkish atmosphere, which public offices of law
have not disturbed, and even legal firms have failed to scare away. In
summer time, its pumps suggest to thirsty idlers, springs cooler, and
more sparkling, and deeper than other wells; and as they trace the
spillings of full pitchers on the heated ground, they snuff the
freshness, and, sighing, cast sad looks towards the Thames, and think of
baths and boats, and saunter on, despondent.

It was in a room in Paper Buildings--a row of goodly tenements, shaded
in front by ancient trees, and looking, at the back, upon the Temple
Gardens--that this, our idler, lounged; now taking up again the paper
he had laid down a hundred times; now trifling with the fragments of
his meal; now pulling forth his golden toothpick, and glancing leisurely
about the room, or out at window into the trim garden walks, where a few
early loiterers were already pacing to and fro. Here a pair of lovers
met to quarrel and make up; there a dark-eyed nursery-maid had better
eyes for Templars than her charge; on this hand an ancient spinster,
with her lapdog in a string, regarded both enormities with scornful
sidelong looks; on that a weazen old gentleman, ogling the nursery-maid,
looked with like scorn upon the spinster, and wondered she didn't know
she was no longer young. Apart from all these, on the river's margin two
or three couple of business-talkers walked slowly up and down in earnest
conversation; and one young man sat thoughtfully on a bench, alone.

'Ned is amazingly patient!' said Mr Chester, glancing at this last-named
person as he set down his teacup and plied the golden toothpick,
'immensely patient! He was sitting yonder when I began to dress, and has
scarcely changed his posture since. A most eccentric dog!'

As he spoke, the figure rose, and came towards him with a rapid pace.

'Really, as if he had heard me,' said the father, resuming his newspaper
with a yawn. 'Dear Ned!'

Presently the room-door opened, and the young man entered; to whom his
father gently waved his hand, and smiled.

'Are you at leisure for a little conversation, sir?' said Edward.

'Surely, Ned. I am always at leisure. You know my constitution.--Have
you breakfasted?'

'Three hours ago.'

'What a very early dog!' cried his father, contemplating him from behind
the toothpick, with a languid