Harvey arming himself with a green gauze
net, and his coat-sleeve glittering with a
multitude of pins, accompanied him in his
walk—diverging for long spaces in search of
butterflies, which he brought back in triumph,
scientifically transfixed on the leaves of his
pocket-book. On their return home, their
after-dinner employment consisted in arranging
their specimens. Arthur spread out on
the clay floor of the passage the different
rocks he had gathered up in his walk. He
broke them into minute fragments, examined
them through his magnifying glass, sometimes
dissolved a portion of them in aquafortis,
tasted them, smelt to them, and finally threw
them way; not so the more fortunate
naturalist: with him the mere pursuit was a
delight, and the victims of his net a
perpetual source of rejoicing. He fitted them into
a tray, wrote their names and families on
narrow slips of paper in the neatest
possible hand, and laid away his box of
treasures as if they were choicest specimens of
diamonds and rubies.

"What a dull occupation yours is! " said
Winnington one night, "compared to mine.
You go thumping old stones and gathering
up lumps of clay, grubbing for ever among
mud or sand, and never lifting up your eyes
from this dirty spot of earth. Whereas I go
merrily over valley and hill, keep my eyes
open to the first flutter of a beautiful butterfly's
wing, follow it in its meandering, happy
flight—"

"And kill it—with torture," interposed
Arthur Hayning, coldly.

"But it's for the sake of science. Nay, as
I am going to be a doctor, it's perhaps for the
sake of fortune—"

"And that justifies you in putting it to
death?"

"There you go with your absurd German
philanthropies; though, by the bye, love for
a butterfly scarcely deserves the name. But
think of the inducement, think of the glory
of verifying with your own eyes the identity
of a creature described in books; think
of the interests at stake; and, above all,
and this ought to be a settling argument
to you, think of the enjoyment it will give
my cousin Lucy to have her specimen-chest
quite filled; and when you are married to
her—"

"Dear Winnington, do hold your tongue.
How can I venture to look forward to that
for many years? I have only a hundred a-
year. She has nothing." Arthur sighed as
he spoke.

"How much do you require? When do
you expect to be rich enough?"

"When I have three times my present
fortune—and that will be—who can tell?
I may suddenly discover a treasure like
Aladdin's, and then, Winnington, my happiness
will be perfect."

"I think you should have made acquaintance
with the magician, or even got
possession of the ring, before you asked her
hand," said Winnington Harvey with a
changed tone. "She is the nicest girl in
the world, and loves you with all her
heart; but if you have to wait till fortune
comes—"

"She will wait also, willingly and happily.
She has told me so. I love her with the
freshness of a heart that has never loved
anything else. I love you too, Winnington,
for her sake; and we had better not talk
any more on the subject, for I don't like
your perpetual objections to the engagement."

Winnington, as usual, yielded to the
superiority of his friend, and was more
affectionate in his manner to him than ever,
as if to blot out the remembrance of what
he had recently said. They went on in
silence with their respective works, and
chipped stones, and impaled butterflies till a
late hour.

"Don't be alarmed, Winnington," said
Arthur, with a smile, as he lighted his bed-
candle that night. " I am twenty-one and
Lucy not nineteen. The genii of the lamp
will be at our bidding before we are very old,
and you shall have apartments in the palace,
and be appointed resident physician to the
princess."

"With a salary of ten thousand a year, and
my board and washing."

"A seat on my right hand, whenever I sit
down to my banquets."

"Good. That's a bargain," said
Winnington, laughing, and they parted to their
rooms.

Geology was not at that time a recognised
science in England. But Arthur Hayning
had been resident for some years in
Germany, where it had long been established
as one of the principal branches of a useful
education. There were chairs of metallurgy,
supported by government grants, and schools
of mining, both theoretic and practical,
established wherever the nature of the soil
was indicative of mineral wealth. Hayning
was an orphan, the son of a country
surgeon, who had managed to amass the sum
of two thousand pounds. He was left in
charge of a friend of his father, engaged in
the Hamburg trade, and by him had been
early sent to the care of a protestant clergyman
in Prussia, who devoted himself to the
improvement of his pupil. His extraordinary
talents were so dwelt on by this excellent
man, in his letters to the guardian, that it
was resolved to give him a better field for
their display, than the University of Jena
could afford, and he had been sent to one of
the public schools in England, and from it,
two years before this period, been transferred,
with the highest possible expectations of
friends and teachers to——College, Oxford.

Here he had made acquintance with
Winnington Harvey; and through him, having
visited him one vacation at his home in