th my distinguished air, my charming ease, in fact almost
anything, if I could have in exchange a few grains of common sense, just
enough to guide me in the practical affairs of life.

I wonder what he is? He might be an artist, but he doesn't seem quite
like an artist; or a dilettante, but he doesn't seem in the least like a
dilettante. Or he might be an architect; I think that is the most
probable guess of all. Perhaps he is only "going to be" one of these
things, for he can't be more than twenty-five or twenty-six. Still he
looks as if he were something already; that is, he has a kind of
self-reliance in his mien,--not self-assertion, nor self-esteem, but
belief in self, as if he were able, and knew that he was able, to conquer
circumstances.

HE

GLOUCESTER, _June_ 10
The Bell.

Nothing accomplished yet. Her aunt is a Van Tyck, and a stiff one, too.
I am a Copley, and that delays matters. Much depends upon the manner of
approach. A false move would be fatal. We have six more towns (as per
itinerary), and if their thirst for cathedrals isn't slaked when these
are finished we have the entire continent to do. If I could only succeed
in making an impression on the retina of aunt Celia's eye! Though I have
been under her feet for ten days, she never yet has observed me. This
absent-mindedness of hers serves me ill now, but it may prove a blessing
later on.

SHE

OXFORD, _June_ 12
The Mitre.

It was here in Oxford that a grain of common sense entered the brain of
the flower of chivalry. You might call it the dawn of reason. We had
spent part of the morning in High Street, "the noblest old street in
England," as our dear Hawthorne calls it. As Wordsworth had written a
sonnet about it, aunt Celia was armed for the fray,--a volume of
Wordsworth in one hand, and one of Hawthorne in the other. (I wish
Baedeker didn't give such full information about what one ought to read
before one can approach these places in a proper spirit.) When we had
done High Street, we went to Magdalen College, and sat down on a bench in
Addison's Walk, where aunt Celia proceeded to store my mind with the
pr