Maverick shows no more appearance of age than when we saw him ten years since, placing his little offering of flowers upon the breakfast-table of poor Rachel,--an excellently well-preserved man,--dressed always in that close conformity to the existing mode which of itself gives a young air,--brushing his hair sedulously so as to cover the growing spot of baldness,--regulating all his table indulgences with the same precision with which he governs his business,--using all the appliances of flesh-brushes and salt-baths to baffle any insidious ailment,--a strong, hale, cheery man, who would have ranked by a score (judging from his exterior) younger than the Doctor. In our time the clerical fraternity are putting a somewhat wiser valuation upon those aids to firm muscle and good digestion which forty years ago in New England their brethren gave over contemptuously to men of the world. What fearful, pinching dyspepsias, what weak, trembling knees and aching sides have been carried into pulpits, and have been strained to the propagation of spiritual doctrine, under the absurd belief that these bodies of ours were not given us to be cherished! As if a Gabriel would not need clean limbs and a firm hand in a grapple with the ministers of misrule! Shall we look for a moment at the French home which Maverick is leaving? A compact country-house of yellow stone upon a niche of the hills that overlook the blue Bay of Lyons; a green arbor over the walk leading to the door; clumps of pittosporum and of jessamine, with two or three straggling fig-trees, within the inclosure; a billiard-room and _salle-à-manger_ upon the ground-floor, and _au premier_ a _salon_, opening, by its long, heavily draped windows, upon a balcony shielded with striped awning. Here on many an evening, when the night wind comes in from the sea, Maverick lounges sipping at his _demi-tasse_, whiffing at a fragrant Havana, (imported to order,) and chatting with some friend he has driven out from the stifling streets of Marseilles about the business chances of the morrow. A tall, agile Alsatian woman, with a gilt crucifix about her neck, and a great deal of the peasant beauty still in her face, glides into the _salon_ from time to time, acting apparently in the capacity of mistress of the establishment--respectfully courteous to Maverick and his friend, yet showing something more than the usual familiarity of a dependent housekeeper.