After his first awkwardness, Mr. Peter Ascott became quite at his ease with Miss Leaf. He began to talk--not of Stowbury, that was tacitly ignored by both--but of London, and then of "my house in Russell Square," "my carriage," "my servants"--the inconvenience of keeping coachmen who would drink, and footmen who would not clean the plate properly; ending by what was a favorite moral axiom of his, that "wealth and position are heavy responsibilities." He himself seemed, however, not to have been quite overwhelmed by them; he was fat and flourishing--with an acuteness and power in the upper half of his face which accounted for his having attained his present position. The lower half, somehow Miss Leaf did not like it, she hardly knew why, though a physiognomist might have known. For Peter Ascott had the underhanging, obstinate, sensual lip, the large throat--bull-necked, as it has been called--indications of that essentially animal nature which may be born with the nobleman as with the clown; which no education can refine, and no talent, though it may co-exist with it, can ever entirely remove. He reminded one, perforce, of the rough old proverb; "You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear." Still, Mr. Ascott was not a bad man, though something deeper than his glorious indifference to grammar, and his dropped h's--which, to steal some one's joke, might have been swept up in bushels from Miss Leaf's parlor--made it impossible for him ever to be, by any culture whatever, a gentleman. They talked of Ascott, as being the most convenient mutual subject; and Miss Leaf expressed the gratitude which her nephew felt, and she earnestly hoped would ever show, toward his kind godfather. Mr. Ascott looked pleased. "Um--yes, Ascott's not a bad fellow--believe he means well: but weak, ma'am, I'm afraid he's weak. Knows nothing of business--has no business habits whatever. However, we must make the best of him; I don't repent any thing I've done for him." "I hope not," said Miss Leaf, gravely. And then there ensued an uncomfortable pause, which was happily broken by the opening of the door, and the sweeping in of a large, goodly figure. "My sister, Mr. Ascott; my sister Selina." The little stout man actually started, and, as he bowed, blushed up to the eyes. Miss Selina was, as I have stated, the beauty of the family, and had once been an acknowledged Stowbury belle. Even now, though nigh upon forty, when carefully and becomingly dressed, her tall figure, and her well featured, fair complexioned, unwrinkled face, made her still appear a very personable woman. At any rate, she was not faded enough, nor the city magnate's heart cold enough to prevent a sudden revival of the vision which--in what now seemed an almost antediluvian stage of existence--had dazzled, Sunday after Sunday, the eyes of the grocer's lad. If there is one pure spot in a man's heart--oven the very worldliest of men--it is usually his boyish first love.