the world shall not call them overpaid. Adieu, my Medici; a dozen such
men, and Art would revive in England."

When he was left alone, Percival sat down, and leaning his face on both
hands, gave way to the gloom which his native manliness and the delicacy
that belongs to true affection had made him struggle not to indulge in
the presence of another. Never had he so loved Helen as in that hour;
never had he so intimately and intensely felt her matchless worth. The
image of her unselfish, quiet, melancholy consideration for that austere,
uncaressing, unsympathizing relation, under whose shade her young heart
must have withered, seemed to him filled with a celestial pathos. And he
almost hated Varney that the cynic painter could have talked of it with
that business-like phlegm. The evening deepened; the tranquil street
grew still; the air seemed close; the solitude oppressed him; he rose
abruptly, seized his hat, and went forth slowly, and still with a heavy
heart.

As he entered Piccadilly, on the broad step of that house successively
inhabited by the Duke of Queensberry and Lord Hertford,--on the step of
that mansion up which so many footsteps light with wanton pleasure have
gayly trod, Percival's eye fell upon a wretched, squalid, ragged object,
doubled up, as it were, in that last despondency which has ceased to beg,
that has no care to steal, that has no wish to live. Percival halted,
and touched the outcast.

"What is the matter, my poor fellow? Take care; the policeman will not
suffer you to rest here. Come, cheer up, I say! There is something to
find you a better lodging!"

The silver fell unheeded on the stones. The thing of rags did not even