"By all means begin at the beginning," said Mr. Le Clear, rubbing his hands in expectant pleasure; "but before you begin, my good Sir, let me suggest that we take a cup of tea together. I must take mine early to-night, as I am to spend the evening out, and there's something to tell you, Sir, when you are through,"--as if meeting his burst of confidence with a corresponding one,--"though it's a small matter, probably, compared with yours, but it has amused me. I can't make a great show on the table," he added, with an elegant humility, when Nicholas accepted his invitation; "but I like to take my tea in my room, though I go out for dinner." So saying, he brought from the cupboard a little table-cloth, and, bustling about, deposited on a tea-tray, one by one, various members of a tea-set, which had evidently been plucked from a tea-plant in China, since the forms and figures were all suggested by the flowery kingdom. The lids of the vessels were shaped like tea-leaves; and miniature China men and women picked their way about among the letters of the Chinese alphabet, as if they were playing at word-puzzles. Nicholas admired the service to its owner's content, establishing thus a new bond of sympathy between them; and both were soon seated near the table, sipping the tea with demure little spoons, that approached the meagreness of Chinese chop-sticks, and decorating white bread with brown marmalade. "Now," said the host, "since you share my salt, I ought to be introduced to you, an office which I will perform without ceremony. My name is Paul Le Clear," which Nicholas and we had already guessed correctly. "And mine," said Nicholas, "is Nicholas,--Nicholas Judge." "Very well, Mr. Judge; now let us have the story," said Paul, extending himself in an easy attitude; "and begin at the beginning." "The story begins with my birth," said Nicholas, with a reckless ingenuousness which was a large part of his host's entertainment. But it is unnecessary to recount in detail what Paul heard, beginning at that epoch, twenty-two years back. Enough to say in brief what Nicholas elaborated: that his mother had died at his birth, in a country home at the foot of a mountain; that in that home he had lived, with his father for almost solitary friend and teacher, until, his father dying, he had come to the city to live; that he had but just reached the place, and had made it his first object to find his mother's only sister, with whom, indeed, his father had kept up no acquaintance, and for finding whom he had but a slight clue, even if she were then living. Nicholas brought his narrative in regular order down to the point where Paul had so unexpectedly accosted him, stopping there, since subsequent facts were fully known to both.