e pensively inclined towards the tea-table.
"Now fancy me at St. Helena; this table is the ocean. Now, then, who is
that cast like, Mr. Philip Morton?"

"I suppose, sir, it is like you!"

"Ah, that it is! strikes every one! Does it not, Mrs. P., does it not?
And when you have known me longer, you will find a moral similitude--a
moral, sir! Straightforward--short--to the point--bold--determined!"

"Bless me, Mr. P.!" said Mrs. Plaskwith, very querulously, "do make
haste with your tea; the young gentleman, I suppose, wants to go home,
and the coach passes in a quarter of an hour."

"Have you seen Kean in Richard the Third, Mr. Morton?" asked Mr.
Plimmins.

"I have never seen a play."

"Never seen a play! How very odd!"

"Not at all odd, Mr. Plimmins," said the stationer. "Mr. Morton has
known troubles--so hand him the hot toast."

Silent and morose, but rather disdainful than sad, Philip listened to
the babble round him, and observed the ungenial characters with which
he was to associate. He cared not to please (that, alas! had never been
especially his study); it was enough for him if he could see, stretching
to his mind's eye beyond the walls of that dull room, the long vistas
into fairer fortune. At sixteen, what sorrow can freeze the Hope, or
what prophetic fear whisper, "Fool!" to the Ambition? He would bear back
into ease and prosperity, if not into affluence and station, the dear
ones left at home. From the eminence of five shillings a week, he looked
over the Promised Land.

At length, Mr. Plaskwith, pulling out his watch, said, "Just in time
to catch the coach; make your bow and be off-smart's the word!" Philip
rose, took up his hat, made a stiff bow that included the whole group,
and vanished with his host.

Mrs. Plaskwith breathed more easily when he was gone. "I never seed
a more odd, fierce, ill-bred-looking young man! I declare I am quite
afraid of him. What an eye he has!"

"Uncommonly dark; what I may say gipsy-like," said Mr. Plimmins.

"He! he! You always do say such good things, Plimmins. Gipsy-like, he!
he! So he is! I wonder if he can tell fortunes?"

"He'll be long before he has a fortune of his own to tell. Ha! ha!" said
Plimmins.

"He! he! how very good! you are so pleasant, Plimmins."

While these strictures on his appearance were still going on, Philip had
already ascended the roof of the coach; and, waving his hand, with the
condescension of old times, to his future master, wa