the world at home with accounts of their adventures, with details of their narrow escapes, and with the counting over daily of the head of game which they with their bow and spear had bagged. It was exciting work that talking over their plans, examining maps of the country (rather vague ones, it is true, but not on that account the less interesting to the travellers), and slaying in anticipation countless numbers of harmless animals then roaming unsuspectingly over their native wilds. Mr. Godfrey Tremlett was a rather heavily-built young man, fresh-complexioned, with a fat, beardless, good-humoured face. His appearance was not precisely that of a sportsman; indeed, that very morning, when he had tried on a certain hunting-suit, very short in the skirts and slightly eccentric in fashion (he had invented it himself, and took much credit to himself for the idea), Arthur, forgetful for the moment of his recent affliction, went off into roars of laughter at the singularity of his friend’s appearance. Neither abashed nor affronted by this proof of intimacy, Godfrey spun round before the glass in an _accès_ of self-satisfaction, which no friendly ridicule had power to check. He was essentially and invariably good-tempered. His high spirits were proof against the normal ills, the daily worries, the hourly _contretemps_ of existence. He had no taste for what is generally called society. Ladies, as a rule, he considered a bore, and “fine ladies” he held in absolute, nay almost physical, dread and horror. He was not extravagant; on the contrary, he made the most of a small patrimony which had descended to him from his deceased father, and contrived to save yearly out of an income of something less than five hundred per annum a sufficient sum to enable him to enjoy in some sporting-fields or other--in Scotland, Norway, or wherever the fancy led him--a few months of excitement and variety.