"You must be amused at the name of this place, Fuzby-le-Mud. What charming prospects the name opens, does it not? I assure you the name fits the place exactly. My goodness! how I do hate the place. You'll ask why then we live here? Simply because we _must_. Some misanthropic relation left us the house we live in, which saves rent. "Yet, if you were with me, I think I could be happy even here. I don't venture to ask you. First of all, we couldn't make you one-tenth part as comfortable as you are at home; secondly, there isn't the ghost of an amusement here, and if you came, you'd go back to Saint Winifred's with a fit of blue devils, as I always do; thirdly, the change from Semlyn to Fuzby-le-Mud would be like walking from the Elysian fields and the asphodel meadows, into mere _borboros_ as old Edwards would say. So I _don't_ ask you; and yet if you could come--why, the day would be marked with white in the dull calendar of--Your ever affectionate-- "Harry Kenrick." As Fuzby lay nearly in the route to Saint Winifred's, Walter, grieved that his friend should be doomed to such dull holidays, determined, with Mr Evson's leave, to pay him a three-days' visit on his way to school. Accordingly, towards the close of the holidays, after a hopeful, a joyous, and an affectionate farewell to all at home, he started for Fuzby, from which he was to accompany Kenrick back to school; a visit fraught, as it turned out, with evil consequences, and one which he never afterwards ceased to look back upon with regret. The railroad, after leaving far behind the glorious hills of Semlyn, passes through country flatter and more uninteresting at every mile, until it finds itself fairly committed to the fens. Nothing but dreary dykes, muddy and straight, guarded by the ghosts of suicidal pollards, and by rows of dreary and desolate mills, occur to break the blank grey monotony of the landscape. Walter was looking out of the window with curious eyes, and he was wondering what life in such conditions could be like, when the train uttered a despairing scream, and reached a station which the porter announced as Fuzby-le-Mud. Walter jumped down, and his hand was instantly seized by Kenrick with a warm and affectionate grasp. "So you're really here, Walter. I can hardly believe it. I half repent having brought you to such a place; but I was _so_ dull." "I shall enjoy it exceedingly, Ken, with you. Shall I give my portmanteau to some man to take up to the village?" "O, no; here's a--well, I may as well call it a _cart_ at once--to take it up in. The curate lent it me, and he calls it a pony-carriage; but it is, you see, nothing more or less than a cart. I hope you won't be ashamed to ride in it." "I should think not," said Walter gaily, mounting into the curious little oblong wooden vehicle. "It isn't very far," said Kenrick, "and I daresay you don't know any one about here; so it won't matter."