struck with the grace of his
bearing, and the improvement in his looks, now that he was without his
hat, and rest and ablution had refreshed from heat and dust the delicate
bloom of his complexion. There was no doubt about it that he was an
exceedingly pretty boy, and if he lived to be a man would make many a
lady's heart ache. It was with a certain air of gracious superiority
such as is seldom warranted by superior rank if it be less than royal,
and chiefly becomes a marked seniority in years, that this young
gentleman, approaching the solemn heir of the Chillinglys, held out his
hand and said,--

"Sir, you have behaved extremely well, and I thank you very much."

"Your Royal Highness is condescending to say so," replied Kenelm
Chillingly, bowing low, "but have you ordered dinner? and what are
they going to give us? No one seems to answer the bell here. As it is a
Temperance Hotel, probably all the servants are drunk."

"Why should they be drunk at a Temperance Hotel?"

"Why! because, as a general rule, people who flagrantly pretend to
anything are the reverse of that which they pretend to. A man who sets
up for a saint is sure to be a sinner, and a man who boasts that he is a
sinner is sure to have some feeble, maudlin, snivelling bit of saintship
about him which is enough to make him a humbug. Masculine honesty,
whether it be saint-like or sinner-like, does not label itself either
saint or sinner. Fancy Saint Augustine labelling himself saint, or
Robert Burns sinner; and therefore, though, little boy, you have
probably not read the poems of Robert Burns, and have certainly not read
the 'Confessions' of Saint Augustine, take my word for it, that both
those personages were very good fellows; and with a little difference of
training and experience, Burns might have written the 'Confessions' and
Augustine the poems. Powers above! I am starving. What did you order for
dinner, and when is it to appear?"

The boy, who had opened to an enormous width a naturally large pair of
hazel eyes, while his tall companion in fustian trousers and Belcher
neckcloth spoke thus patronizingly of Robert Burns and Saint Augustine,
now replied, with rather a deprecatory and shamefaced aspect, "I am
sorry I was not thinking of dinner. I was not so mindful of you as I
ought to have been. The landlady asked me what we would have. I said,
'What you like;' and the landlady muttered something about--" here the
boy hesitated.

"Yes. About wha