"What is there to consider about? Answer
me this! Have you not been complaining of
your health, and have you not been longing for
what you call a smack of the country breeze?
Well! there in your hand is the paper that
offers you perpetual choking mouthfuls of country
breeze, for four months' time. Is it not
so? Ha? Again — you want money. Well!
Is four golden guineas a week nothing? My-
soul-bless-my-soul! only give it to me— and my
boots shall creak like the golden Papa's, with a
sense of the overpowering richness of the man
who walks in them! Four guineas a week, and,
more than that, the charming society of two
young Misses; and, more than that, your bed,
your breakfast, your dinner, your gorging English
teas and lunches and drinks of foaming beer, all
for nothing— why, Walter, my dear good friend—
deuce-what-the-deuce!— for the first time in my
life I have not eyes enough in my head to look,
and wonder at you!"

Neither my mother's evident astonishment at
my behaviour, nor Pesca's fervid enumeration
of the advantages offered to me by the new
employment, had any effect in shaking my
unreasonable disinclination to go to Limmeridge
House. After starting all the petty objections
that I could think of to going to Cumberland; and
after hearing them answered, one after another,
to my own complete discomfiture, I tried to set
up a last obstacle by asking what was to become
of my pupils in London, while I was teaching
Mr. Fairlie's young ladies to sketch from nature.
The obvious answer to this was that the greater
part of them would be away on their autumn
travels, and that the few who remained at home
might be confided to the care of one of my
brother drawing-masters, whose pupils I had
once taken off his hands under similar
circumstances. My sister reminded me that this
gentleman had expressly placed his services at my
disposal, during the present season, in case I
wished to leave town; my mother seriously
appealed to me not to let an idle caprice stand in
the way of my own interests and my own health;
and Pesca piteously entreated that I would not
wound him to the heart, by rejecting the first
grateful offer of service that he had been able
to make to the friend who had saved his life.

The evident sincerity and affection which
inspired these remonstrances would have
influenced any man with an atom of good feeling in
his composition. Though I could not conquer
my own unaccountable perversity, I had at least
virtue enough to be heartily ashamed of it, and
to end the discussion pleasantly by giving way
and promising to do all that was wanted of me.
The rest of the evening passed merrily enough in
humorous anticipations of my coming life with
the two young ladies in Cumberland. Pesca,
inspired by our national grog, which appeared
to get into his head, in the most marvellous
manner, five minutes after it had gone down his
throat, asserted his claims to be considered a
complete Englishman by making a series of
speeches in rapid succession; proposing my
mother's health, my sister's health, my health,
and the healths, in mass, of Mr. Fairlie and
the two young Misses; pathetically returning
thanks himself, immediately afterwards, for the
whole party. "A secret, Walter," said my
little friend, confidentially, as we walked home
together. "I am flushed by the recollection of
my own eloquence. My soul bursts itself with
ambition. One of these days, I go into your
noble Parliament. It is the dream of my whole
life to be Honourable Pesca, M.P.!"

The next morning I sent my testimonials to
the Professor's employer in Portland-place.
Three days passed; and I concluded, with secret
satisfaction, that my papers had not been found
sufficiently explicit. On the fourth day,
however, an answer came. It announced that Mr.
Fairlie accepted my services, and requested me
to start for Cumberland immediately. All the
necessary instructions for my journey were
carefully and clearly added in a postscript.

I made my arrangements, unwillingly enough,
for leaving London early the next day. Towards
evening Pesca looked in, on his way to a dinner-
party, to bid me good-by.

"I shall dry my tears in your absence," said
the Professor, gaily, "with this glorious thought.
It is my auspicious hand that has given the first
push to your fortune in the world. Go, my
friend! When your sun shines in Cumberland
(English proverb), in the name of Heaven, make
your hay. Marry one of the two young Misses;
inherit the fat lands of Fairlie; become Honourable
Hartright, M.P.; and when you are on the
top of the ladder, remember that Pesca, at the
bottom, has done it all!"

I tried to laugh with my little friend over his
parting jest, but my spirits were not to be
commanded. Something jarred in me almost
painfully, while he was speaking his light farewell
words.

When I was left alone again, nothing
remained to be done but to walk to the
Hampstead Cottage and bid my mother and Sarah
good-by.

III.
THE heat had been painfully oppressive all
day; and it was now a close and sultry night.

My mother and sister had spoken so many
last words, and had begged me to wait another
five minutes so many times, that it was nearly
midnight when the servant locked the garden-
gate behind me. I walked forward a few paces
on the shortest way back to London; then
stopped, and hesitated.

The moon was full and broad in the dark blue
starless sky; and the broken ground of the heath
looked wild enough in the mysterious light to
be hundreds of miles away from the great
city that lay beneath it. The idea of descending
any sooner than I could help into the heat
and gloom of London repelled me. The
prospect of going to bed in my airless chambers, and
the prospect of gradual suffocation, seemed, in
my present restless frame of mind and body, to
be one and the same thing. I determined to
stroll home in the purer air, by the most round-
about way I could take; to follow the white