house at Knightsbridge, sat Lord L'Estrange, sorting or destroying
letters and papers,--an ordinary symptom of change of residence. There
are certain trifles by which a shrewd observer may judge of a man's
disposition. Thus, ranged on the table, with some elegance, but with
soldier-like precision, were sundry little relics of former days,
hallowed by some sentiment of memory, or perhaps endeared solely by
custom; which, whether he was in Egypt, Italy, or England, always made
part of the furniture of Harley's room. Even the small, old-fashioned,
and somewhat inconvenient inkstand into which he dipped the pen as he
labelled the letters he put aside, belonged to the writing-desk which had
been his pride as a schoolboy. Even the books that lay scattered round
were not new works, not those to which we turn to satisfy the curiosity
of an hour, or to distract our graver thoughts; they were chiefly either
Latin or Italian poets, with many a, pencil-mark on the margin; or books
which, making severe demand on thought, require slow and frequent
perusal, and become companions. Somehow or other, in remarking that even
in dumb, inanimate things the man was averse to change, and had the habit
of attaching himself to whatever was connected with old associations, you
might guess that he clung with pertinacity to affections more important,
and you could better comprehend the freshness of his friendship for one
so dissimilar in pursuits and character as Audley Egerton. An affection
once admitted into the heart of Harley L'Estrange seemed never to be
questioned or reasoned with; it became tacitly fixed, as it were, into
his own nature, and little less than a revolution of his whole system
could dislodge or disturb it.

Lord L'Estrange's hand rested now upon a letter in a stiff, legible
Italian character, and instead of disposing of it at once as he had done
with the rest, he spread it before him, and re-read the contents. It was
a letter from Riccabocca, received a few weeks since, and ran thus:--