o alone?"

"O, no; we'll ask Flip, to amuse us on the way."

"And may I ask Power?"

"If you like," said Kenrick, who was, I am sorry to say, not a little
jealous of the friendship which had sprung up between Power and Walter.

"And would you mind Daubeny joining us?"

"Not at all; and he's clearly overworking himself. It'll do him good.
Let me see--you, Power, Flip, Dubbs, and me; that'll be enough, won't
it?"

"Well, I should like to ask Eden."

"Eden!" said Kenrick with the least little touch of contempt in his tone
of voice.

"Poor little fellow," said Walter smiling sadly; "so you, too, despise
him. No wonder he doesn't get on."

"O! let him come by all means, if you like," said Kenrick.

"Thanks, Ken--but now I come to think of it, it's too far for him.
Never mind; let's go before dinner, and order some sandwiches for
to-morrow, and forage generally, at Cole's."

Power and Daubeny gladly consented to join the excursion. At tea,
Walter asked Henderson if he'd come with them, and he, being just then
in a phase of nonsense which made him speak of everything in a manner
intended to be Homeric, answered with oracular gravity--

"Him addressed in reply the laughter-loving son of Hender:
Thou askest me, oh Evides, like to the immortals,
Whether thee I will accompany, and the much-enduring Dubbs,
And the counsellor Power, and the revered ox-eyed Kenrick,
To the tops of thousand-crested many-fountained Appenfell."

"Grotesque idiot," said Kenrick, laughing; "cease this weak, washy,
everlasting flood of twaddle, and tell us whether you'll come or no."

"Him sternly eyeing, addressed in reply the mighty Henderides,
Heavy with tea, with the eyes of a dog, and the heart of a reindeer!
What word has escaped thee, the barrier of thy teeth?
Contrary to right, not according to right, hast thou spoken."

"For goodness' sake shut up before you've driven us stark raving mad,"
said Walter, putting his hand over Henderson's lips. "Now, yes or no;
will you come?"

"Thee will I accompany--" said Henderson, struggling to get clear of
Walter, "to many-fountained Appenfell--"

"Hurrah! that'll do. We have got an answer out of you at last; and now
go on spouting the whole Iliad if you like."

Full of spirits they started after breakfast the next morning, and as
they climbed higher and higher up the steep mountainside, the keen air
exhilarated them, and showed, as through a crystal glass, the exce