Aware of how uninteresting the subject must prove, I shall make that
something as short as possible.

Already it will have been clearly understood, both from my own hints,
and from Miss Blake's far from reticent remarks on my position, that I
was a clerk at a salary in Mr. Craven's office.

But this had not always been the case. When I went first to Buckingham
Street, I was duly articled to Mr. Craven, and my mother and sister, who
were of aspiring dispositions, lamented that my choice of a profession
had fallen on law rather than soldiering.

They would have been proud of a young fellow in uniform; but they did
not feel at all elated at the idea of being so closely connected with a
"musty attorney."

As for my father, he told me to make my own choice, and found the money
to enable me to do so. He was an easy-going soul, who was in the
miserable position of having a sufficient income to live on without
exerting either mind or body; and yet whose income was insufficient to
enable him to have superior hobbies, or to gratify any particular taste.
We resided in the country, and belonged to the middle class of
comfortable, well-to-do English people. In our way, we were somewhat
exclusive as to our associates--and as the Hall and Castle residents
were, in their way, exclusive also, we lived almost out of society.

Indeed, we were very intimate with only one family in our neighbourhood;
and I think it was the example of the son of that house which first
induced me to think of leading a different existence from that in which