chopping off noblemen's heads. It does not seem to signify much whether the verses be good or bad, so far as the pleasure of the verse-maker himself is concerned; for Richelieu was as much charmed with his occupation as Horace was, and his verses were certainly not Horatian."

Surely at your age, sir, and with your evident education"

"Say culture; that's the word in fashion nowadays."

"-Well, your evident culture-you must have made verses.'

"Latin verses-yes-and occasionally Greek. I was obliged to do so at school. It did not amuse me.”

"Try English."

Kenelm shook his head. "Not I. Every cobbler should stick to his last."

"Well, put aside the verse-making: don't you find a sensible enjoyment in those solitary summer walks, when you have Nature all to yourself-enjoyment in marking all the mobile, evanescent changes in her face

-her laugh, her smile, her tears, her very frown!"

Assuming that by Nature you mean a mechanical series of external phenomena, I object to your speaking of a machinery as if it were a person of the feminine genderher laugh, her smile, &c. As well talk of the laugh and smile of a steam-engine. But to descend to common-sense. I grant there is some pleasure in solitary rambles in fine weather and amid varying scenery. You say that it is a holiday excursion that you are enjoying: I presume, therefore, that you have some practical occupation which consumes the time that you do not devote to a holiday?"

"Yes; I am not altogether an idler. I work sometimes, though not so hard as I ought. 'Life is earnest,' as the poet says. But I and my dog are rested now, and as I have still a long walk before me, I must wish you good-day."

"I fear," said Kenelm, with a grave and sweet politeness of tone and manner, which

he could command at times, and which, in its difference from merely conventional urbanity, was not without fascination—“ I fear that I have offended you by a question that must have seemed to you inquisitiveperhaps impertinent; accept my excuse; it is very rarely that I meet any one who interests me; and you do." As he spoke he offered his hand, which the wayfarer shook very cordially.

"I should be a churl indeed if your question could have given me offence. It is rather perhaps I who am guilty of impertinence, if I take advantage of my seniority in years, and tender you a counsel. Do not despise Nature, or regard her as a steamengine; you will find in her a very agreeable and conversable friend, if you will cultivate her intimacy. And I don't know a better mode of doing so at your age, and with your strong limbs, than putting a knapsack on your shoulders, and turning foot-traveller, like myself."

"Sir, I thank

you for

your counsel; and

I trust we may meet again, and interchange ideas as to the thing you call Nature—a thing which science and art never appear to see with the same eyes. If to an artist Nature has a soul, why, so has a steam-engine. Art gifts with soul all matter that it contemplates; science turns all that is already gifted with soul into matter. Good-day,

sir."

Here Kenelm turned back abruptly, and the traveller went his way, silently and thoughtfully.

CHAPTER XV.

KENELM retraced his steps homeward under the shade of his 'old hereditary trees.' One might have thought his path along the greenswards, and by the side of the babbling rivulet, was pleasanter and more conducive to peaceful thoughts than the broad, dusty thoroughfare along which plodded the wanderer he had quitted. But the man addicted to reverie forms his own landscapes and colours his own skies.

66

"It is," soliloquised Kenelm Chillingly,

a strange yearning I have long felt-to get out of myself to get, as it were, into another man's skin-and have a little variety of thought and emotion. One's self is always the same self; and that is why I yawn so often. But if I can't get into another