hearing that gentleman tell how he had travelled
beyond the Styx. Mr. Pritchett was rather fat and wheezy, and the
effort made him sigh gently for the next two minutes.

Bertram had put on his hat and was going, when Mr. Pritchett,
recovering himself, asked yet a further question. "And what did you
think of Miss Waddington, sir?"

"Think of her!" said George.

"A very beautiful young lady; isn't she? and clever, too. I knew
her father well, Mr. George--very well. Isn't she a very handsome
young lady? Ah, well! she hasn't money enough, Mr. George; that's
the fact; that's the fact. But"--and Mr. Pritchett whispered as he
continued--"the old gentleman might make it more, Mr. George."

Mr. Pritchett had a somewhat melancholy way of speaking of
everything. It was more in his tone than in his words. And this tone,
which was all but sepulchral, was perhaps owing rather to a short
neck and an asthmatic tendency than to any real sorrow or natural
lowness of spirits.

Those who saw Mr. Pritchett often probably remembered this, and
counted on it; but with George there was always a graveyard touch
about these little interviews. He could not, therefore, but have some
melancholy presentiment when he heard Miss Waddington spoken of in
such a tone.

On the following day he went down to Hadley, and, as was customary
there, found that he was to spend the evening _tete-a-tete_ with his
uncle. Nothing seemed changed since he had left it: his uncle came in
just before dinner, and poked the fire exactly as he had done on the
last visit George had paid him after a long absence. "Come, John,
we're three minutes late! why don't we have dinner?" He asked no
question--at least, not at first--either about Sir Lionel or about
Jerusalem, and seemed resolute to give the traveller none of that
_eclat_, to pay to his adventures none of that deferential awe which
had been so well expressed by Mr. Pritchett in two words.

But Mr. Bertram, though he always began so coldly, did usually
improve after a few hours. His tone would gradually become less
cynical and harsh; his words would come out more freely; and he would
appear somewhat less anxious to wound the _amour propre_ of his
companion.

"Are you much wiser for your travels, George?" he said at last, when
John had taken away the dinner, and they were left alone with a
bottle of port wine between them. This, too, was asked in a very
cynical tone, but still there was some improvement in the v