“See, now, Missr Pammer,” said the old man, with great vivacity, smiling good-naturedly as he spoke; “you parry, now—it is simple quarte and tierce—vair, vair easy. Hey, now! Hey, now! Hey, now! Hey, now! Four.” Quietly, at every exclamation, Monsieur Bagasse, without effort, bent his foil almost double on the breast of his antagonist. Palmer could no more parry the deft lunges than he could fly. Bagasse stood grinning good-naturedly at him, and lowered his point. Palmer instantly made a desperate lunge at the unguarded breast, and the same instant found that his foil had flown out of his hand, and that the blade of Bagasse was resting in a firm curve on his bosom. All present, Palmer included, burst into a roar of laughter. All but the master, who stood silent, with his curious, good-natured smile on his upturned visage. It was quite plain to the pupil now, that he could not touch Monsieur Bagasse on or off guard, unless the latter chose to let him. Suddenly, like a light magnetic shock, a silence fell upon the uproarious mirth, as with a surprised and startled feeling, all present recognized a new figure, serene in youthful majesty, standing quietly at a little distance near them, in the full light of the windows. It was Harrington. They all knew him, but somehow the unexpectedness of his appearance gave him the momentary effect of a stranger. He was a young man of about twenty-five, tall and stalwart, and of regnant and martial bearing. His face, looking out from under a black slouched felt hat, was long and bearded, singularly open and noble in its character, firm, calm-eyed, straight-featured, broad-nostrilled, and masculine, but very pale. The beard was light-brown, and the hair, chestnut in color, and darker than the beard, curled closely, and was worn somewhat long. A loose, dark sack, with large sleeves, buttoned with a single button at the throat, showed the spread of his chest, and added to the commanding grace of his figure. This was the coat which had been so opprobriously celebrated by the esthetic Witherlee. It was an old coat certainly, but it was not the less a well-chosen and graceful garment, and it is questionable whether if it had hung in tatters, it would have diminished the effect of a presence in contrast with which the others seemed common-place and inferior. Witherlee himself, set in comparison with Harrington, looked unmanly and contemptibly genteel. Whilt was nobody, Vukovich a simpering fop, the mercantiloes simple snobs. Even the handsome and gallant Wentworth seemed of a lower order beside him, and Bagasse, in his uncouth and shabby grotesqueness, though not degraded by the contrast, was so removed by his essential unlikeness, as to be out of comparison altogether. Wentworth was the first to recover from the momentary ghostly trance into which they had all dropped on discovering Harrington in the room. “Jupiter Tonans!” he exclaimed: “How—when—where—in what manner did you arrive, Harrington!”