re moralist should prepare to cry fie against the good,
pure-minded little J. J., I hereby state that his strawberry-girl was a
little village maiden of seven years old, whose sweet little picture a
bishop purchased at the next year's Exhibition.

"Are you going already?" cries J. J., removing the bit out of his mouth.
"I thought you had arranged parties for a week to come, and that the
princesses and the duchesses had positively forbidden the departure of
your lordship!"

"We have dallied at Capua long enough," says Clive; "and the legions
have the route for Rome. So wills Hannibal, the son of Hasdrubal."

"The son of Hasdrubal is quite right," his companion answered; "the
sooner we march the better. I have always said it; I will get all the
accounts in. Hannibal has been living like a voluptuous Carthaginian
prince. One, two, three champagne-bottles! There will be a deuce of a
bill to pay."

"Ah! there will be a deuce of a bill to pay," says Clive, with a groan
whereof J. J. knew the portent; for the young men had the confidence of
youth one in another. Clive was accustomed to pour out his full heart to
any crony who was near him; and indeed had he spoken never a word, his
growing attachment to his cousin was not hard to see. A hundred times,
and with the glowing language and feelings of youth, with the fire of
his twenty years, with the ardour of a painter, he had spoken of her and
described her. Her magnanimous simplicity, her courage and lofty scorn,
her kindness towards her little family, her form, her glorious colour of
rich carnation and dazzling white, her queenly grace when quiescent and
in motion, had constantly formed the subjects of this young gentleman's
ardent eulogies. As he looked at a great picture or statue, as the Venus
of Milo, calm and deep, unfathomably beautiful as the sea from which she
sprung; as he looked at the rushing Aurora of the Rospigliosi, or the
Assumption of Titian, more bright and glorious than sunshine, or that
divine Madonna and divine Infant, of Dresden, whose sweet faces must
have shone upon Raphael out of heaven; his heart sang hymns, as it
were, before these gracious altars; and, somewhat as he worshipped these
masterpieces of his art, he admired the beauty of Ethel.

J. J. felt these things exquisitely after his manner, and enjoyed
honest Clive's mode of celebration and rapturous fioriture of song;
but Ridley's natural note was much gentler, and he sang his hymns in
plain