cherishing, or indeed creating, any intimacy with the object of his
solicitude. A companionship with one who was Coningsby's relative and most
familiar friend, would at the first glance have appeared, independently of
all other considerations, a most desirable result for Millbank to
accomplish. But, perhaps, this very circumstance afforded additional
reasons for the absence of all encouragement with which he received the
overtures of Lord Henry. Millbank suspected that Coningsby was not
affected in his favour, and his pride recoiled from gaining, by any
indirect means, an intimacy which to have obtained in a plain and express
manner would have deeply gratified him. However, the urgent invitation of
Buckhurst and Henry Sydney, and the fear that a persistence in refusal
might be misinterpreted into churlishness, had at length brought Millbank
to their breakfast-mess, though, when he accepted their invitation, he did
not apprehend that Coningsby would have been present.

It was about an hour before sunset, the day of this very breakfast, and a
good number of boys, in lounging groups, were collected in the Long Walk.
The sports and matches of the day were over. Criticism had succeeded to
action in sculling and in cricket. They talked over the exploits of the
morning; canvassed the merits of the competitors, marked the fellow whose
play or whose stroke was improving; glanced at another, whose promise had
not been fulfilled; discussed the pretensions, and adjudged the palm. Thus
public opinion is formed. Some, too, might be seen with their books and
exercises, intent on the inevitable and impending tasks. Among these, some
unhappy wight in the remove, wandering about with his hat, after parochial
fashion, seeking relief in the shape of a verse. A hard lot this, to know
that you must be delivered of fourteen verses at least in the twenty-four
hours, and to be conscious that you are pregnant of none. The lesser boys,
urchins of tender years, clustered like flies round the baskets of certain
vendors of sugary delicacies that rested on the Long Walk wall. The pallid