, I dream of being in his wild hut in the
forest and listening to the wolfish voices at the door.

MY NOVEL:

OR, VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE.[20]

BY PISISTRATUS CAXTON.

BOOK IX. CONTINUED--CHAPTER IX.

With a slow step and an abstracted air, Harley L'Estrange bent his way
towards Egerton's house, after his eventful interview with Helen. He had
just entered one of the streets leading into Grosvenor Square, when a
young man, walking quickly from the opposite direction, came full
against him, and drawing back with a brief apology, recognized him, and
exclaimed, "What! you in England, Lord L'Estrange! Accept my
congratulations on your return. But you seem scarcely to remember me."

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Leslie. I remember you now, by your smile; but
you are of an age in which it is permitted me to say that you look older
than when I saw you last."

"And yet, Lord L'Estrange, it seems to me that you look younger."

Indeed this reply was so far true that there appeared less difference of
years than before between Leslie and L'Estrange; for the wrinkles in the
schemer's mind were visible in his visage, while Harley's dreamy worship
of Truth and Beauty seemed to have preserved to the votary the enduring
youth of the divinities.

Harley received the compliment with a supreme indifference, which might
have been suitable to a Stoic, but which seemed scarcely natural to a
gentleman who had just proposed to a lady many years younger than
himself.

Leslie renewed--"Perhaps you are on your way to Mr. Egerton's. If so,
you will not find him at home; he is at his office."

"Thank you. Then to his office I must re-direct my steps."

"I am going to him myself," said Randal hesitatingly.

L'Estrange had no prepossessions in favor of Leslie, from the little he
had seen of that young gentleman; but Randal's remark was an appeal to
his habitual urbanity, and he replied with well-bred readiness, "Let us
be companions so far."

Randal accepted the arm proffered to him; and Lord L'Estrange, as is
usual with one long absent from his native land, bore part as a
questioner in the dialogue that ensued.

"Egerton is always the same man, I suppose--too busy for illness, and
too firm for sorrow?"

"If he ever feel either he will never stoop to complain. But indeed, my
dear lord, I should like much to know what you think of his health."

"How? You alarm me!"

"Nay, I did not mean to do that; and pray, do not let him kno