e
inn which reminds me of the inns near our country home. I see the same
sanded parlour, decorated with the same old sporting prints, furnished
with the same battered, deep-coloured mahogany table, and polished elm
tree chairs, that I remember in our own village inn. Clara, also, finds
bits of common, out of doors, that look like _our_ common; and trees
that might have been transplanted expressly for her, from _our_ park.

These excursions we keep a secret, we like to enjoy them entirely by
ourselves. Besides, if my father knew that his daughter was drinking
the landlady's fresh milk, and his son the landlord's old ale, in the
parlour of a suburban roadside inn, he would, I believe, be apt to
suspect that both his children had fairly taken leave of their senses.

Evening parties I frequent almost as rarely as my father. Clara's good
nature is called into requisition to do duty for me, as well as for
him. She has little respite in the task. Old lady relatives and friends,
always ready to take care of her, leave her no excuse for staying
at home. Sometimes I am shamed into accompanying her a little more
frequently than usual; but my old indolence in these matters soon
possesses me again. I have contracted a bad habit of writing at night--I
read almost incessantly in the day time. It is only because I am fond of
riding, that I am ever willing to interrupt my studies, and ever ready
to go out at all.

Such were my domestic habits, such my regular occupations and
amusements, when a mere accident changed every purpose of my life, and
altered me irretrievably from what I was then, to what I am now.

It happened thus:

VII.

I had just received my quarter's allowance of pocket-money, and had gone
into the city to cash the cheque at my father's bankers.

The money paid, I debated for a moment how I should return homewards.
First I thought of walking: then of taking a cab. While I was
considering this frivolous point, an omnibus passed me, going westward.
In the idle impulse of the moment, I hailed it, and got in.

It was something more than an idle impulse though. If I had at that time
no other qualification for the literary career on which I was entering,
I certainly had this one--an aptitude for discovering points of
character in others: and its natural result, an unfailing delight in
studying characters of all kinds, wherever I could meet with them.

I had often before ridden in omnibuses to amuse myself by observin