'Ah! He will do you more good than a doctor, Jasper.'

'More good than a dozen doctors. For I love him dearly, and I
don't love doctors, or doctors' stuff.'

Mr. Jasper is a dark man of some six-and-twenty, with thick,
lustrous, well-arranged black hair and whiskers. He looks older
than he is, as dark men often do. His voice is deep and good, his
face and figure are good, his manner is a little sombre. His room
is a little sombre, and may have had its influence in forming his
manner. It is mostly in shadow. Even when the sun shines
brilliantly, it seldom touches the grand piano in the recess, or
the folio music-books on the stand, or the book-shelves on the
wall, or the unfinished picture of a blooming schoolgirl hanging
over the chimneypiece; her flowing brown hair tied with a blue
riband, and her beauty remarkable for a quite childish, almost
babyish, touch of saucy discontent, comically conscious of itself.
(There is not the least artistic merit in this picture, which is a
mere daub; but it is clear that the painter has made it humorously-
-one might almost say, revengefully--like the original.)

'We shall miss you, Jasper, at the "Alternate Musical Wednesdays"
to-night; but no doubt you are best at home. Good-night. God
bless you! "Tell me, shep-herds, te-e-ell me; tell me-e-e, have
you seen (have you seen, have you seen, have you seen) my-y-y Flo-
o-ora-a pass this way!"' Melodiously good Minor Canon the Reverend
Septimus Crisparkle thus delivers himself, in musical rhythm, as he
withdraws his amiable face from the doorway and conveys it down-
stairs.