‘Dear Sidonia: This will be given you by my cousin Montacute, of whom I spoke to you yesterday. He wants to go to Jerusalem, which very much perplexes his family, for he is an only child. I don’t suppose the danger is what they imagine. But still there is nothing like experience, and there is no one who knows so much of these things as yourself. I have promised his father and mother, very innocent people, whom of all my relatives, I most affect, to do what I can for him. If, therefore, you can aid Montacute, you will really serve me. He seems to have character, though I can’t well make him out. I fear I indulged in the hock yesterday, for I feel a twinge. Yours faithfully, ‘ESKDALE. ‘Wednesday morning.’ The hall clock had commenced the quarter chimes, when a young man, fair and intelligent, and wearing spectacles, came into the hall, and, opening the door of the waiting-room, looked as if he expected to find some one there; then, turning to the porter, he said, ‘Where is Lord Montacute?’ The porter rose from his hooded chair, and put down the newspaper, but Tancred had advanced when he heard his name, and bowed, and followed the young man in spectacles, who invited Tancred to accompany him. Tancred was ushered into a spacious and rather long apartment, panelled with old oak up to the white coved ceiling, which was richly ornamented. Four windows looked upon the fountain and the plane tree. A portrait by Lawrence, evidently of the same individual who had furnished the model to Chantrey, was over the high, old-fashioned, but very handsome marble mantel-piece. A Turkey carpet, curtains of crimson damask, some large tables covered with papers, several easy chairs, against the walls some iron cabinets, these were the furniture of the room, at one corner of which was a glass door, which led to a vista of apartments fitted up as counting-houses, filled with clerks, and which, if expedient, might be covered by a baize screen, which was now unclosed. A gentleman writing at a table rose as he came in, and extending his hand said, as he pointed to a seat, ‘I am afraid I have made you come out at an unusual hour.’ The young man in spectacles in the meanwhile retired; Tancred had bowed and murmured his compliments: and his host, drawing his chair a little from the table, continued: ‘Lord Eskdale tells me that you have some thoughts of going to Jerusalem.’ ‘I have for some time had that intention.’ ‘It is a pity that you did not set out earlier in the year, and then you might have been there during the Easter pilgrimage. It is a fine sight.’ ‘It is a pity,’ said Tancred; ‘but to reach Jerusalem is with me an object of so much moment, that I shall be content to find myself there at any time, and under any circumstances.’ ‘It is no longer difficult to reach Jerusalem; the real difficulty is the one experienced by the crusaders, to know what to do when you have arrived there.’