as soon as he opened his eyes in the morning, made him rise instantly and begin to do something. He had got an unconquerable horror of those hours of silent thought and meditation which had once been a joy and a privilege to him, as they are and must be to all robust, properly ripening minds. It was for this reason that, being tired with his work, soothed with eating and drinking, and pervaded by a feeling of quiet calm and contentment unusual with him, he felt reluctant to move, and sat on, his handsome bronzed face set in a gravity that amounted to solemnity, and a fixed listlessness in his dark and brilliant eyes. Soon, he knew, the transient pause would be over--for the contentment was abnormal--soon the aching sense of desolation and unrest would return, and he would have to awake again. Very soon, indeed, the spell was broken. A party of young men, strolling through the gardens, saw him, greeted him, and sat down beside him. They began to talk--persisted in drawing his attention to this girl and that girl, and in asking him if he had heard this piece of gossip or the other. They were well-conditioned, kind-hearted young fellows enough; they had liked him, and had treated him with friendliness ever since his advent amongst them, and they continued to seek his company, in spite of his unvarying sedateness and gravity. Myles, in these latter days, was courtesy itself to all who merited courtesy; if Adrienne Blisset could have heard the yea, yea and nay, nay of his daily communication at present, she would have been quite unable to accuse him of being ‘scornful’ or ‘disdainful,’ as she once had done. What she might have felt about the little air of proud, absent, patient indifference, who shall say? Despite absence and indifference, Myles was very well liked amongst the better sort of the young men of Eisendorf. They were of various nationalities; chiefly, however, German, Dutch, and English, with a sprinkling of French. They were all engaged in commercial pursuits, with the exception of one or two young professional men, and an occasional ‘lieutenant’--that much-laughed-at, much-abused equivalent of the English curate. It was known--Myles had never attempted to make any secret of it--that he had left a workman’s situation in an English town, to come and be the overlooker at Herr Süsmeyer’s works--that since then he had rapidly risen to the post of manager and headman; that Herr Süsmeyer had greatly attached himself to him; and it was thought more than probable that Herr Süsmeyer’s son, Julius, would never abandon his favourite occupation of travelling in foreign lands, and that when Herr Süsmeyer had provided for the said Julius, he would most likely retire, and leave his business in the hands of Myles Heywood, who--so every one agreed--was quite the most proper person to succeed to it.