go to his head. He told Harry all his story as they sat together. His father had been an English clerk, sent out from England to an office in Leghorn, who had married an Italian girl, and died in the first year of their marriage. Paolo was very proud of that fine and aristocratic name of Thompson, of which there was a Lord and many Sirs, he informed Harry with great but smiling seriousness; his mother, though she had been so young, would never re-marry herself, though pressed on all sides to do so--such was her devotion to her youthful husband who was English, and to the romantic and euphonious name which he had left her. The young man grew every moment more friendly. Harry’s suspicions all floated away as he listened to the story, and laughed at the accent and grammar of his new acquaintance, who laughed too with perfect good-humour. Thompson--he was a fit associate for an Oliver, Harry said to himself, knowing nothing about any Oliver save Isaac whose name he had appropriated. After dinner was over Paolo proposed that they should go for a stroll; and though Harry had done nothing else but stroll all the afternoon with very small advantage, yet he was quite willing to begin again with the aid of his friend’s knowledge. It was less lonely than sitting in the dreadful little room of which Paolo had ventured to say that it was so comfortable, and exactly what an Englishman liked. Harry shuddered at the thought; he had never been used to sit in his bedroom, and he could not but feel it a sort of humiliation that he had no other room to sit in. His new friend was a wonderful example of costume to the untrained taste of Harry. He wore trousers of a large check, but a black evening coat over them, a large shirt-front, a black ribbon at his neck tied in a bow, and varnished shoes. He was very well contented with his appearance. When he added an opera-hat to all this finery, the sensation in his little bosom of thorough self-content was very warm. Harry could not but laugh at the little exquisite, whose gorgeous apparel was so unlike anything he had ever seen. “I don’t know if I dare to walk out in my coloured clothes with such a swell as you are, Thompson,” he said. Paolo looked down upon himself delighted. He knew he was well-dressed.