eyes; wears neither whiskers, beard, nor
mustache; keeps his thick curly black hair rather too closely cut; and
has a briskly-comical kindness of expression in his face, which it is
not easy to contemplate for the first time without smiling at him. He
is tall and stout, always wears very tight trousers, and generally keeps
his wristbands turned up over the cuffs of his coat. All his movements
are quick and fidgety. He appears to walk principally on his toes,
and seems always on the point of beginning to dance, or jump, or run
whenever he moves about, either in or out of doors. When he speaks he
has an odd habit of ducking his head suddenly, and looking at the person
whom he addresses over his shoulder. These, and other little personal
peculiarities of the same undignified nature, all contribute to make him
exactly that sort of person whom everybody shakes hands with, and nobody
bows to, on a first introduction. Men instinctively choose him to be the
recipient of a joke, girls to be the male confidant of all flirtations
which they like to talk about, children to be their petitioner for the
pardon of a fault, or the reward of a half-holiday. On the other hand,
he is decidedly unpopular among that large class of Englishmen, whose
only topics of conversation are public nuisances and political abuses;
for he resolutely looks at everything on the bright side, and has never
read a leading article or a parliamentary debate in his life. In brief,
men of business habits think him a fool, and intellectual women with
independent views cite him triumphantly as an excellent specimen of the
inferior male sex.

Still whistling, Mr. Blyth walks towards an earthen pipkin in one corner
of the studio, and takes from it a little china palette which he has
neglected to clean since he last used it. Looking round the room for
some waste paper, on which he can deposit the half-dried old paint that
has been scraped off with the palette knife, Mr. Blyth's eyes happen
to light first on the deal table, and on four or five notes which lie
scattered over it.

These he thinks will suit his purpose as well as anything else, so he
takes up the notes, but before making use of them, reads their contents
over for the second time--partly by way of caution, partly though a
dawdling habit, which men of his absent disposition are always too ready
to contract. Three of these letters happen to be in the same scrambling,
blotted handwriting. They are none of th