The companion of the personage thus sketched might be somewhere about
seventeen; but his gait, his air, his lithe, vigorous frame, showed a
manliness at variance with the boyish bloom of his face. He struck the
eye much more than his elder comrade. Not that he was regularly
handsome,--far from it; yet it is no paradox to say that he was
beautiful, at least, few indeed were the women who would not have called
him so. His hair, long like his friend's, was of a dark chestnut, with
gold gleaming through it where the sun fell, inclining to curl, and
singularly soft and silken in its texture. His large, clear, dark-blue,
happy eyes were fringed with long ebon lashes, and set under brows which
already wore the expression of intellectual power, and, better still, of
frank courage and open loyalty. His complexion was fair, and somewhat
pale, and his lips in laughing showed teeth exquisitely white and even.
But though his profile was clearly cut, it was far from the Greek ideal;
and he wanted the height of stature which is usually considered essential
to the personal pretensions of the male sex. Without being positively
short, he was still under middle height, and from the compact development
of his proportions, seemed already to have attained his full growth. His
dress, though not foreign, like his comrade's, was peculiar: a broad-
brimmed straw hat, with a wide blue ribbon; shirt collar turned down,
leaving the throat bare; a dark-green jacket of thinner material than
cloth; white trousers and waistcoat completed his costume. He looked
like a mother's darling,--perhaps he was one.

Scratch across his back went one of those ingenious mechanical
contrivances familiarly in vogue at fairs, which are designed to impress
upon the victim to whom they are applied, the pleasing conviction that
his garment is rent in twain.