The coachman, who had driven the eleven-mile stage from Haygate in fifty-eight minutes, unbuckled and flung down the reins. The guard thrust his bugle into its case, tossed a bundle of journals to the waiting boys, and stepped nimbly to the ground. The passengers followed more slowly, stamping their chilled feet, and stretching their cramped limbs. Some, who were strangers, looked about them with a travelled air, or hastened to the blazing fires that shone from the Lion windows, while two or three who were at their journey’s end bustled about, rescuing shawls and portmanteaux, or dived into inner pockets for the coachman’s fee. The last to appear, a man, rather below the middle height, in a handsome caped travelling-coat, was in no hurry. He stepped out at his ease and found the young man who has been described at his side. “That you, Arthur?” he said, his face lighting up. “All well?” “All well, sir. Let me take that!” “Isn’t Rodd here? Ah!” to a second young man, plainer, darker, and more soberly garbed, who had silently appeared at his forerunner’s elbow. “Take this, Rodd, will you?” handing him a small leather case. “Don’t let it go, until it is on my table. All well?” “All well, sir, thank you.” “Then go on at once, will you? I will follow with Mr. Bourdillon. Give me your arm, Arthur.” He looked about him as he spoke. One or two hats were lifted, he acknowledged the courtesy with a smile. “Betty well?” “You’ll find her at the window looking out. All gone swimmingly, I hope, sir?” “Swimmingly?” The traveller paused on the word, perhaps questioning its propriety; and he did not continue until they had disengaged themselves from the group round the coach. He and the young man came, though there was nothing to show this, from different grades of society, and the one was thirty years older than the other and some inches shorter. Yet there was a likeness. The lower part of the face in each was strong, and a certain brightness in the eyes, that was alertness in the younger man and keenness in the elder, told of a sanguine temperament; and they were both good-looking. “Swimmingly?” the traveller repeated when they had freed themselves from their immediate neighbors. “Well, if you choose to put it that way, yes. But, it’s wonderful, wonderful,” in a lower tone, as he paused an instant to acknowledge an acquaintance, “the state of things up there, my boy.” “Still rising?” “Rising as if things would never fall. And upon my word I don’t know why, with the marvellous progress everything is making—but I’ll tell you all that later. It’s a full market. Is Acherley at the bank?” “Yes, and Sir Charles. They came a little before time.” “Clement is with them, I suppose?” “Well, no, sir.” “Don’t say he’s away to-day!” in a tone of vexation. “I’m afraid he is,” Arthur admitted. “But they are all right. I offered Sir Charles the paper, but they preferred to wait outside.”