to be duly accredited to you myself, through my
uncle."

"You need not, Mr. Calvert. I recognise
you for one of the family in many ways," said
Miss Grainger; "and when your friend
accompanies you, he will be most welcome."

So, truly cordially they parted.

CHAPTER V. OLD MEMORIES.

WHEN Calvert rejoined his friend, he was full
of the adventure of the morning—such a glorious
discovery as he had made. What a wonderful
old woman, and what charming girls! Milly,
however, he owned, rather inclined to the
contemptuous. "She was what you Cockneys call
'sarcy,' Loyd; but the sick girl was positively
enchanting; so pretty, so gentle, and so
confiding withal. By the way, you must make me
three or four sketches of Nile scenery—a dull
flat, with a palm-tree, group of camels in the
fore, and a pyramid in the back ground; and I'll
get up the journal part, while you are doing the
illustrations. I know nothing of Egypt beyond
the overland route, though I have persuaded
them I kept house in Cairo, and advised them
by all means to take Florence there for the
winter."

"But how could you practise such a deception
in such a case, Calvert?" said Loyd, reproachfully.

"Just as naturally as you have 'got up' that
grand tone of moral remonstrance. What an
arrant humbug you are, Loyd. Why not keep
all this fine indignation for Westminster, where
it will pay?"

"Quiz away, if you like; but you will not
prevent me saying that the case of a poor sick
girl is not one for a foolish jest, or a—"

He stopped, and grew very red, but the other
continued:

"Out with it, man. You were going to say, a
falsehood. I'm not going to be vexed with you
because you happen to have a rather
crape-coloured temperament, and like turning things
round till you find the dark side of them." He
paused for a few seconds, and then went on:
"If you had been in my place this morning, I
know well enough what you'd have done. You'd
have rung the changes over the uncertainty of
life, and all its miseries and disappointments.
You'd have frightened that poor delicate creature
out of her wits, and driven her sister half
distracted, to satisfy what you imagine to be
your conscience, but which, I know far better,
is nothing but a morbid love of excitement—an
unhealthy passion for witnessing pain. Now, I
left her actually looking better for my visit—
she was cheered and gay, and asked when I'd
come again, in a voice that betrayed a wish for
my return."

Loyd never liked being drawn into a discussion
with his friend, seeing how profitless such
encounters are in general, and how likely to
embitter intercourse; so he merely took his hat
and moved towards the door.

"Where are you going? Not to that odious
task of photography, I hope?" cried Calvert.

"Yes," said the other, smiling; "I am making
a complete series of views of the lake, and some
fine day or other I'll make water-colour drawings
from them."

"How I hate all these fine intentions that
only point to more work. Tell me of a plan for
a holiday, some grand scheme for idleness, and I
am with you; but to sit quietly down and say,
'I'll roll that stone up a hill next summer, or
next autumn,' that drives me mad."

"Well, I'll not drive you mad. I'll say nothing
about it," said Loyd, with a good-natured
smile.

"But won't you make me these drawings,
these jottings of my tour amongst the Pyramids?"

"Not for such an object as you want them to
serve."

"I suppose, when you come to practise at
the bar, you'll only defend innocence and
protect virtue, eh? You'll, of course, never take
the brief of a knave, or try to get a villain off.
With your principles, to do so would be the
basest of all crimes."

"I hope I'll never do that deliberately which
my conscience tells me I ought not to do."

"All right. Conscience is always in one's
own keeping—a guest in the house, who is far
too well bred to be disagreeable to the family.
Oh, you arch hypocrite! how much worse you
are than a reprobate like myself."

"I'll not dispute that."

"More hypocrisy!"

"I mean that, without conceding the point,
it's a thesis I'll not argue."

"You ought to have been a Jesuit, Loyd!
You'd have been a grand fellow in a long black
soutane, with little buttons down to the feet,
and a skull-cap on your head. I think I see
some poor devil coming to you about a 'cas de
conscience,' and going away sorely puzzled with
your reply to him."

"Don't come to me with one of yours, Calvert,
that's all," said Loyd, laughing, as he hurried
off.

Like many men who have a strong spirit of
banter in them, Calvert was vexed and mortified
when his sarcasm did not wound. "If the stag
will not run, there can be no pursuit," and so
was it that he now felt angry with Loyd, angry
with himself. "I suppose these are the sort of
fellows who get on in life. The world likes
their quiet subserviency, and their sleek
submissiveness. As for me, and the like of me, we are
'not placed.' Now for a line to my cousin
Sophy, to know who is the 'Grainger' who says
she is so well acquainted with us 'all.' Poor
Sophy, it was a love affair once between us, and
then it came to a quarrel, and out of that we
fell into the deeper bitterness of what is called
'a friendship.' We never really hated each other
till we came to that!"

"Dearest, best of friends," he began, "in my
broken health, fortunes, and spirits, I came to
this place a few weeks ago, and made, by chance,
the acquaintance of an atrocious old woman