Before a table in the apartments appropriated to him in his father's house at Knightsbridge, sate 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 in which he dipped the pen as he labeled 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 reread the contents. It was a letter from Riccabocca, received a few weeks since, and ran thus: _Letter from Signor Riccabocca to Lord L'Estrange_. "I thank you, my noble friend, for judging of me with faith in my honor, and respect for my reverses.