three men
had formed their friendship in Italy, where the bands of friendship are
woven by the hands of the Graces.

CHAPTER V.

Leonard and Mr. Burley walked on into the suburbs round the north road
from London, and Mr. Burley offered to find literary employment for
Leonard,--an offer eagerly accepted.

Then they went into a public-house by the wayside. Burley demanded
a private room, called for pen, ink, and paper; and placing these
implements before Leonard, said, "Write what you please, in prose, five
sheets of letter-paper, twenty-two lines to a page,--neither more nor
less."

"I cannot write so."

"Tut, 't is for bread."

The boy's face crimsoned.

"I must forget that," said he.

"There is an arbour in the garden, under a weeping-ash," returned
Burley. "Go there, and fancy yourself in Arcadia."

Leonard was too pleased to obey. He found out the little arbour at one
end of a deserted bowling-green. All was still,--the hedgerow shut
out the sight of the inn. The sun lay warm on the grass, and glinted
pleasantly through the leaves of the ash. And Leonard there wrote the
first essay from his hand as Author by profession. What was it that he
wrote? His dreamy impressions of London, an anathema on its streets and
its hearts of stone, murmurs against poverty, dark elegies on fate?

Oh, no! little knowest thou true genius, if thou askest such questions,
or thinkest that there under the weeping-ash the task-work for bread was
remembered; or that the sunbeam glinted but over the practical world,
which, vulgar and sordid, lay around. Leonard wrote a fairy tale,--one
of the loveliest you can conceive, with a delicate touch of playful
humour, in a style all flowered over with happy fancies. He smiled as
he wrote the last word,--he was happy. In rather more than an hour Mr.
Burley came to him, and found him with that smile on his lips.

Mr. Burley had a glass of brandy-and-water in his hand; it was his
third. He too smiled, he too looked happy. He read the paper aloud,
and well. He was very complimentary. "You will do!" said he, clapping
Leonard on the back. "Perhaps some day you will catch my one-eyed
perch." Then he folded up the manuscript, scribbled off a note, put the
whole in one envelope, and they returned to London.

Mr. Burley disappeared within a dingy office near Fleet Street, on which
was inscribed, "Office of the 'Beehive,'" and soon came forth with a
golden sovereign in his hand, Leonard's fi