which gymnasium for the neighbouring cats, weather-stained, smoke-
blackened, and overgrown with weeds, appeared in these latter days
to be no very sure reliance.

'Nothing changed,' said the traveller, stopping to look round.
'Dark and miserable as ever. A light in my mother's window, which
seems never to have been extinguished since I came home twice a
year from school, and dragged my box over this pavement. Well,
well, well!'

He went up to the door, which had a projecting canopy in carved
work of festooned jack-towels and children's heads with water on
the brain, designed after a once-popular monumental pattern, and
knocked. A shuffling step was soon heard on the stone floor of the
hall, and the door was opened by an old man, bent and dried, but
with keen eyes.

He had a candle in his hand, and he held it up for a moment to
assist his keen eyes. 'Ah, Mr Arthur?' he said, without any
emotion, 'you are come at last? Step in.'

Mr Arthur stepped in and shut the door.

'Your figure is filled out, and set,' said the old man, turning to
look at him with the light raised again, and shaking his head; 'but
you don't come up to your father in my opinion. Nor yet your
mother.'

'How is my mother?'