what had become of them, Old Garnett
himself was indeed so changed that it would
have been hard to recognise him, if I had
not been prepared for it. His long, gaunt
figure, had become more upright. Over his
few, thin grey hairs, he had put a neat brown
wig. His white cravat, though still touched
with a little of the old mouldiness, was broad
and full, and ornamented with a large pin;
and his blue coat with metal buttons, his
Hessian boots, and grey pantaloons, wrinkled
and shrunken as they looked, were infinitely
superior to anything I had ever seen him
wear. But the crowning ornaments were
his thick-rimmed silver-gilt double eye-glass,
hanging round his neck, and the spotted
Malacca cane, with which he walked about.
Everybody noticed the change; and it was a
pleasure to me to hear what they said of his
son. Was I not right, who from the first
had seen in Philip Garnett one of the noblest
fellows in the world?

Alice often saw, and talked with the old
stockbroker; and even my father was not too
proud to recognise him now, but would
shake hands with him when they met in the
street, and say, "How d'ye do, Garnett?
How d'ye do?" when some such conversation
as this generally took place:

"O, pretty well, thank you: all but the
old enemy."

"Troublesome again, is he?" said my
father, who had no notion of what complaint
he was speaking.

"He never lets go of me."

"How does business thrive?"

"Very well; only our Phil—— "

"Your son?"

"Yes: he is so very——  ." Here the old
man would raise his hand, and shake it
several times in the air, and wink, as if my
father must understand that better than any
words.

"No serious complaint against him, I
hope?" said my father, puzzled.

"No, no," replied Garnett, dropping into a
whisper; " but the fact is, he is hardly fit for
this business. He won't look abroad. He
has talent enough to make a Goldsmid; but
he'll never be one. I might have had a share
in a courier the other day with a Hamburgh
house— a glorious chance; but no."

"A good sign," said my father. "Depend
upon it, he has a longer head than most
young fellows, and will beat us all, in time."

At this, old Garnett would shake his head,
and go up the street, shaking it still, and
talking to himself aloud, while he flourished
his cane to and fro, sometimes striking pieces
of waste paper or leaves from the ground,
and tossing them high into the air, in a way
which I used to fancy yielded a relief to his
mind, as best expressing to himself how he
would strike moral obstacles from his path,
had he but as a young and vigorous man to
begin the world anew.

"Poor old Garnett!" my father used to
say. "What little brains he had, are clearly
gone." My father had indeed a high opinion,
of the prudence of the son; and when a kind
of business was offered to him, which
required a surety for a considerable amount,
my father voluntarily undertook to give the
bond.

Alice Vanderlinden had now grown into
a woman. All the time I had been in my
father's counting-house, she had been our
playmate and our friend. The Vanderlindens
being my relatives, we passed to and
fro between the two houses, as if they were
but one, — Garnett and I often dining with
Alice and her father, when she sat at the
head of the table, as mistress of the house.
Nobody else ever dined there, save the old
head-clerk; occasionally a Dutch correspondent
of the house, equally grave; and once
or twice Garnett's father, whose oddity
pleased Mr. Vanderlinden. Alice's life was
dull enough, but she did not complain; but
took to her duties, her household accounts,
and the huge bunch of keys which she kept
in her basket, with a sort of matronly dignity
which often made me laugh, and yet was
beautiful in my eyes. Month after month,
in winter and in summer, she saw nothing
but the square paved yard under her window,
and its sooty-looking tree, whose leaves came
out late and dropped off early,—except on
Sundays, when she went to church in a
lane close by, running down to the river,
where a sleepy preacher, in a pulpit carved
and ornamented by Grinling Gibbons, drawled
out discourses which had no merit but their
shortness.

Shall I say, that in all this time I had no
secret from my old schoolfellow and loved
companion, my more than friend and brother,
and that our trust and confidence was so
perfect, and without shadow of reserve, that
there was not a thought or feeling, or inward
wish, which could have been imagined to be
mine, of which he could not speak, or say it
could not be, because unknown to him? Not
one: for how could I speak of that which
even to myself, was still vague and shapeless,
and only to be guessed from signs and hints,
by which he himself might have known it, but
did not, any more than I? So it was, until
one memorable day.

I was in the long drawing-room in the
Vanderlindens' house, with Alice and her
sister. I had been with them more than
ever lately; for Garnett had been away on
some business in the north of England.
Something led me to talk of him, as indeed
I often did with Alice, to whom he was as
familiar a companion as myself. I was never
tired of praising his good qualities, his kindness
to his father, his great talents; and
Alice would always join me, adding
something to my praises. But this day, for the
first time, she avoided the subject.

"It is a droll thing," said I, hardly noticing
this," that poor old Garnett, fond as he is of