Harry again left the table first. He had made an engagement with Karl and Fritz. We were to find him at the place where they were at work, which was almost on our way. The Doctor wanted an hour or two more for his flowers. While he was busy with them, I occupied myself with the books which Harry had brought me. We set off for the marshes. We walked the first part of the way in silence, or nearly so, only exchanging now and then an observation on the weather or scenery, not very earnest. "How we miss Harry Dudley!" I was just saying within myself, when the Doctor made the same exclamation aloud. I wanted nothing better than to hear him talk of Harry again. I saw he was ready, and turned to him with a look of expectation which he understood. "I told you I had known Harry all his life; and so I have. But our friendship began when he was about five years old. The time before that has left me only a general remembrance of his singular beauty and a certain charming gayety that seemed to lighten the air all about him. But I went one day to his father's house in the country with some friends I wanted to introduce there,--strangers. There was no one at home, the man who answered our knock said, except---- He stepped back, and there came forward this lovely child, who received us in due form, regretted his father's absence, conducted us in, ordered refreshments for us, and, in short, did the honors of the house with the ease and courtesy of a man of society, and, at the same time, with a sweet, infantile grace not to be described. I was content with Young America that day. Harry and I have been intimates ever since then. We had our little differences from the first, just as we have now. I thought my twenty years' advantage in experience gave me a right to have my judgments accepted without being examined; but he took a different view of my claims. When I went out to his father's, I always used to look the little fellow up,--in the garden, or in the barn, or wherever he might be. As soon as I appeared, his eyes took a merry sparkle, as if he knew there was good sport ahead: and so there was, for both of us. He maintained his side with an originality and quaint humor that made a debate with him a very entertaining exercise. Some of his childish sayings have stayed in my mind, though many wiser things have passed out of it." The Doctor enjoyed his thoughts a little while; and then, with a graver, and something of a confidential tone,-- "If Harry should talk to you about his future, do not encourage that little vein of Quixotism that runs in his blood." "The enterprise of the Pilgrim Fathers was somewhat Quixotic,--was it not?" "Certainly it was; you would not have found me among them." Again a silence, which I left the Doctor to break.