egin to feel frightened,
and I am so friendless;" and the boy, who had before resented the
slightest nudge on the part of Kenelm, now wound his arm into Kenelm's,
and clung to him caressingly.

I don't know what my readers have hitherto thought of Kenelm Chillingly:
but, amid all the curves and windings of his whimsical humour, there was
one way that went straight to his heart; you had only to be weaker than
himself and ask his protection.

He turned round abruptly; he forgot all the strangeness of his position,
and replied: "Little brute that you are, I'll be shot if I forsake you
if in trouble. But some compassion is also due to the cob: for his sake
say where we are to stop."

"I am sure I can't say: I never was here before. Let us go to a nice
quiet inn. Drive slowly: we'll look out for one."

Tor-Hadham was a large town, not nominally the capital of the county,
but, in point of trade and bustle and life, virtually the capital. The
straight street, through which the cob went as slowly as if he had
been drawing a Triumphal Car up the Sacred Hill, presented an animated
appearance. The shops had handsome facades and plate-glass windows;
the pavements exhibited a lively concourse, evidently not merely of
business, but of pleasure, for a large proportion of the passers-by was
composed of the fair sex, smartly dressed, many of them young and some
pretty. In fact a regiment of her Majesty's -----th Hussars had been
sent into the town two days before; and, between the officers of that
fortunate regiment and the fair sex in that hospitable town, there was
a natural emulation which should make the greater number of slain and
wounded. The advent of these heroes, professional subtracters from
hostile and multipliers of friendly populations, gave a stimulus to
the caterers for those amusements which bring young folks
together,--archery-meetings, rifle-shootings, concerts, balls, announced
in bills attached to boards and walls and exposed at shop-windows.

The boy looked eagerly forth from the gig, scanning especially these
advertisements, till at length he uttered an excited exclamation, "Ah, I
was right: there it is!"

"There what is?" asked Kenelm,--"the inn?" His companion did not answer,
but Kenelm following the boy's eye perceived an immense hand-bill.

"TO-MORROW NIGHT THEATRE OPENS.

"RICHARD III. Mr. COMPTON."

"Do just ask where the theatre is," said the boy, in a whisper, turning
away his head.