him full of joy.

"Louis," he cried, "I am so glad to speak to you! I don't know how
it is that I have not been able to speak to you lately: I half thought
Edward did not like it, but he asked me to-day why I did not come to
you now."

"Did he?" exclaimed Louis, with joyful surprise; "I am very glad you
are come. I think we shall have a beautiful walk."

"I can't think how it is, Louis, that everybody is either so grave or
rude when I speak of you. What is the matter?"

"A mistake; and a sad one for me," said Louis, gravely. "But don't say
any thing about it, Alfred; they think I have been doing something very
wrong; but all will come out some day."

"I hope so," replied little Alfred; "I cannot think what you can have
done wrong, Louis, you always seem so good."

The child looked wistfully up in Louis' face as he spoke, and seemed
to wait some explanation.

"That is because you do not know much about me, Alfred," replied Louis;
"but in this one case I have not done wrong, I assure you."

Alfred asked no more questions, though he looked more than once in the
now sorrowful young face by him, as they sauntered along the wide downs.

"Here come Edward and Mr. Trevannion," said Alfred, turning round;
"and there is Frank Digby, and Mr. Ferrers, too. I think Edward is
going to Bristol this afternoon."

This intimation of the august approach of his majesty and court was
hardly given when the young gentlemen passed Louis. Hamilton, with
Trevannion, as usual, leaning on his arm, and Frank Digby walking
backwards before them, vainly endeavoring to support a failing
argument with a flood of nonsense, a common custom with this young
gentleman; and, by the way, we might recommend it as remarkably
convenient at such times, to prevent the pain of a total discomfiture,
it being more pleasant to slip quietly and unseen from your pedestal
to some perfectly remote topic, than to allow yourself to be hurled
roughly therefrom by the rude hand of a more sound and successful
disputant.

"Enough, enough, Frank!" exclaimed Hamilton, laughing. "I see through
your flimsy veil. We won't say any more: you either argue in a circle,
or try to blind us."

Louis looked up as Hamilton passed, in hopes that that magnate might
give him a favorable glance, in which he was not mistaken, for Edward
the Great had been watching him from some distance, and was perfectly
aware of his near approach to him.

He certainly did not seem displeased,