nd seemed clear
and painstaking, and distinguished by common sense. He was brave and
accurate.

Mr. Rodney was in waiting for him at the inn. He seemed a most
distinguished gentleman. A hackney coach carried them to Warwick Street,
where he was welcomed by Mrs. Rodney, who was exquisitely dressed. There
was also her sister, a girl not older than Endymion, the very image of
Mrs. Rodney, except that she was a brunette--a brilliant brunette. This
sister bore the romantic name of Imogene, for which she was indebted
to her father performing the part of the husband of the heroine in
Maturin's tragedy of the "Castle of St. Aldobrand," and which, under the
inspiration of Kean, had set the town in a blaze about the time of her
birth. Tea was awaiting him, and there was a mixture in their several
manners of not ungraceful hospitality and the remembrance of past
dependence, which was genuine and not uninteresting, though Endymion was
yet too inexperienced to observe all this.

Mrs. Rodney talked very much of Endymion's mother; her wondrous beauty,
her more wondrous dresses; the splendour of her fetes and equipages.
As she dilated on the past, she seemed to share its lustre and its
triumphs. "The first of the land were always in attendance on her," and
for Mrs. Rodney's part, she never saw a real horsewoman since her dear
lady. Her sister did not speak, but listened with rapt attention to the
gorgeous details, occasionally stealing a glance at Endymion--a glance
of deep interest, of admiration mingled as it were both with reverence
and pity.

Mr. Rodney took up the conversation if his wife paused. He spoke of
all the leading statesmen who had been the habitual companions of Mr.
Ferrars, and threw out several anecdotes respecting them from personal
experience. "I knew them all," continued Mr. Rodney, "I might say
intimately;" and then he told his great anecdote, how he had been so
fortunate as perhaps even to save the Duke's life during the Reform
Bill riots. "His Grace has never forgotten it, and only the day before
yesterday I met him in St. James' Street walking with Mr. Arbuthnot, and
he touched his hat to me."

All this gossip and good nature, and the kind and lively scene, saved
Endymion from the inevitable pang, or at least greatly softened it,
which accompanies our first separation from home. In due season, Mrs.
Rodney observed that she doubted not Mr. Endymion, for so they ever
called him, must be wearied with his jour