friends, always ready to take care of her, leave her no excuse for
staying at home. Sometimes I am shamed into accompanying her a little
more frequently than usual; but my old indolence in these matters soon
possesses me again. I have contracted a bad habit of writing at
night--I read almost incessantly in the day time. It is only because I
am fond of riding, that I am ever willing to interrupt my studies, and
ever ready to go out at all.

Such were my domestic habits, such my regular occupations and
amusements, when a mere accident changed every purpose of my life, and
altered me irretrievably from what I was then, to what I am now.

It happened thus:

VII.

I had just received my quarter's allowance of pocket-money, and had
gone into the city to cash the cheque at my father's bankers.

The money paid, I debated for a moment how I should return homewards.
First I thought of walking: then of taking a cab. While I was
considering this frivolous point, an omnibus passed me, going
westward. In the idle impulse of the moment, I hailed it, and got in.

It was something more than an idle impulse though. If I had at that
time no other qualification for the literary career on which I was
entering, I certainly had this one--an aptitude for discovering points
of character in others: and its natural result, an unfailing delight
in studying characters of all kinds, wherever I could meet with them.