No two people could well be more different in disposition and appearance than were Frank and Charlie. The man--strong, sedate, practical, acute, and penetrating; the boy--light, active, hot-headed, and romantic, jumping to conclusions, averse to reasoning and reflection, acting on the impulse of the moment, and continually getting into scrapes, which his friend as continually had to get him out of. Yet after they had known each other a few months they became inseparable. Charlie went regularly, after his studies at the rectory, to pass the rest of the day at the hall; and Frank found a renewed pleasure in boating, cricket, hunting, shooting, and even fishing, from the keen enjoyment with which the “young one” entered upon these diversions. As for the “young one” himself, he thought there was nothing in the world equal to Hardingstone--so strong, so plucky, so well-read, so sagacious, with such faultless coats, and such a good seat upon a horse, he was the boy’s hero (we have all had such in our day), and he worshipped him accordingly. So ill could he bear to lose sight of his Mentor, even during the sunshiny hours of the vacation, that he had begged Hardingstone to come over to St. Swithin’s, no very great distance from his own place, and had promised to introduce him to the “Aunt Kettering,” and “Blanche,” of whom he had heard so much in the intervals of their amusements “by thicket and by stream.” The promise was made and kept--and Frank was living at the Royal Hotel, disgusting the landlord by the simplicity of his habits, and the waiter by his carelessness as regarded dinner, whilst he was growing day by day in the good graces even of Mrs. Kettering, and finding, as he himself thought with great penetration, a vast deal of sound merit in the fresh, inexperienced mind of Blanche. “Your cousin looks all the better for sea-bathing, Charlie,” said Hardingstone to his young companion, as they toiled slowly along the broiling parade, where every sunbeam was refracted with tenfold power from glaring houses and a scorching pavement. “It braces the system just as good head-work braces the intellect. People don’t train half enough, I think--even women ought to have sound minds in sound bodies; and look what indolent, unmeaning, insipid wretches half of them are--not like your aunt. Now that’s what I call a vigorous woman, Charlie; she’d do in the colonies or anywhere--she’s fit to be a queen, my boy, because she’s got some energy about her. As for you, young gentleman, you work hard enough out-of-doors, but you neglect your brains altogether--I don’t believe now that you have opened a book since you left Nobottle’s.” “Wrong again, Frank, as usual,” replied Charlie; “I read for an hour this very morning, whilst I was dressing; I am very fond of reading when it’s not _dry_.” “And may I ask what your early studies were, my industrious young philosopher?” “‘Parisina’ and ‘The Bride of Abydos’--by Jove, old fellow, it’s beautiful.”