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Eugene Aram — Volume 01 by Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton
page 36 of 167 (21%)
character, that did not really belong to it. For what in the world makes
a man of just pride appear so unamiable as the sense of dependence?




CHAPTER II.

A PUBLICAN, A SINNER, AND A STRANGER

"Ah, Don Alphonso, is it you? Agreeable accident! Chance presents you to
my eyes where you were least expected." Gil Blas.

It was an evening in the beginning of summer, and Peter Dealtry and the
ci-devant Corporal sate beneath the sign of The Spotted Dog (as it hung
motionless from the bough of a friendly elm), quaffing a cup of boon
companionship. The reader will imagine the two men very different from
each other in form and aspect; the one short, dry, fragile, and betraying
a love of ease in his unbuttoned vest, and a certain lolling, see-sawing
method of balancing his body upon his chair; the other, erect and solemn,
and as steady on his seat as if he were nailed to it. It was a fine,
tranquil balmy evening; the sun had just set, and the clouds still
retained the rosy tints which they had caught from his parting ray. Here
and there, at scattered intervals, you might see the cottages peeping
from the trees around them; or mark the smoke that rose from their roofs-
-roofs green with mosses and house-leek,--in graceful and spiral curls
against the clear soft air. It was an English scene, and the two men, the
dog at their feet, (for Peter Dealtry favoured a wirey stone-coloured
cur, which he called a terrier,) and just at the door of the little inn,
two old gossips, loitering on the threshold in familiar chat with the
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