perhaps it deserves.

But Mivers was true to his contract to preserve inviolable the
incognito of the author, and Kenelm regarded with profound contempt
the articles themselves and the readers who praised them.

Just as misanthropy with some persons grows out of benevolence
disappointed, so there are certain natures--and Kenelm Chillingly's
was perhaps one of them--in which indifferentism grows out of
earnestness baffled.

He had promised himself pleasure in renewing acquaintance with his old
tutor, Mr. Welby,--pleasure in refreshing his own taste for
metaphysics and casuistry and criticism. But that accomplished
professor of realism had retired from philosophy altogether, and was
now enjoying a holiday for life in the business of a public office. A
minister in favour of whom, when in opposition, Mr. Welby, in a moment
of whim, wrote some very able articles in a leading journal, had, on
acceding to power, presented the realist with one of those few good
things still left to ministerial patronage,--a place worth about
L1,200 a year. His mornings thus engaged in routine work, Mr. Welby
enjoyed his evenings in a convivial way.

"/Inveni portum/," he said to Kenelm; "I plunge into no troubled
waters now. But come and dine with me to-morrow, tete-a-tete. My
wife is at St. Leonard's with my youngest born for the benefit of
sea-air." Kenelm accepted the invitation.

The dinner would have contented a Brillat-Savarin: it was faultless;
and the claret was that rare nectar, the Lafitte of 1848.