and may make his acquaintance over a county history any day in the
King's Road--he is an old man now, advanced in the seventies, who was
born before the battle of Waterloo was fought, and can remember
Chelsea when it was full of veterans wounded in battles fought long
before the Corsican Attila was let loose upon the world. His face
wears the peaceful and wise expression which belongs peculiarly to his
profession. Other callings make a man look peaceful, but not all other
callings make him look wise. Mr. Emblem was born by nature of a calm
temperament,--otherwise he would not have been happy in his business;
a smile lies generally upon his lips, and his eyes are soft and
benign; his hair is white, and his face, once ruddy, is pale, yet not
shrunk and seamed with furrows as happens to so many old men, but
round and firm; like his chin and lips it is clean shaven; he wears a
black coat extraordinarily shiny in the sleeve, and a black silk stock
just as he used to wear in the thirties when he was young, and
something of a dandy, and would show himself on a Saturday evening in
the pit of Drury Lane; and the stock is fastened behind with a silver
buckle. He is, in fact, a delightful old gentleman to look at and
pleasant to converse with, and on his brow every one who can read may
see, visibly stamped, the seal of a harmless and honest life. At the
contemplation of such a man, one's opinion of humanity is sensibly
raised, and even house-agents, plumbers, and suburban builders, feel
that, after all, virtue may bring with, it some reward.

The quiet and warmth of the afternoon, unbroken to his accustomed ear,
as it would be to a stranger, by the murmurous roll of London, made
him sleepy. In his hand he held a letter which he had been reading for
the hundredth time, and of which he knew by heart every word; and as
his eyes closed he went back in imagination to a passage in the past
which it recalled.