has lulled once more; the air has cleared awhile, and we can talk
calmly over all the wonders of that sudden, strange, and sad "Two
years ago."

So felt, at least, two friends who went down, just one week before
Christmas-day, to Whitbury, in Berkshire. Two years ago had come to
one of them, as to thousands more, the crisis of his life; and he was
talking of it with his companion; and was on his way, too, to learn
more of that story, which this book contains, and in which he had
borne his part.

They wore both of them men who would at first sight interest a
stranger. The shorter of the two he might have seen before--at picture
sales, Royal Academy meetings, dinner parties, evening parties,
anywhere and everywhere, in town; for Claude Mellot is a general
favourite, and a general guest.

He is a tiny, delicate-featured man, with a look of half-lazy
enthusiasm about his beautiful face, which reminds you much of
Shelley's portrait; only he has what Shelley had not, clustering
auburn curls, and a rich brown beard, soft as silk. You set him
down at once as a man of delicate susceptibility, sweetness,
thoughtfulness; probably (as he actually is) an artist.

His companion is a man of statelier stamp, tall, dark, and handsome,
with a very large forehead; if the face has a fault, it is that the
mouth is too small; that, and the expression of face too, and the
tone of voice, seem to indicate over-refinement, possibly a too
aristocratic exclusiveness. He is dressed like a very fine gentleman
indeed, and looks and talks like one. Aristocrat, however, in the