"So, George, I find I have succeeded in giving you an exalted idea of my character and ability already. Have you forgotten that famous gift I had of extemporizing yarns at school? Well, to relieve your mind, the devil--that is to say, Mr. Edward Fitzgerald--is not quite so black as he has painted himself. Nor, indeed, am I quite so powerful and fluent a writer as I have imagined. I am on a mission here, though; partly business, and partly to take my sister back with me to New York. She has been staying with some of her school friends, convent companions. I was on my way to join them when this lucky accident tumbled me into your hermitage. And now, what has brought you here? You seem quite domiciled. Why, I expected to have heard great things of you by this time." "I? Oh! I am doing nothing," said George, with a sigh, coming back to himself. "Nothing! Well, that is not such a bad occupation when you only know how to do it, and can find no other employment." "Why, what else can a fellow do?" Ned was fairly taken aback at this question. To ask him what a fellow could do in this world was like asking him why he had teeth, or hands, or a head, or life altogether. After an amazed stare at his friend, he answered: "Well, I suppose that what a man can do is generally best known to himself, when, like you, he has life in his veins, brains in his head, and money in his pocket. At all events, it is scarcely likely that you were made for the precise purpose of burying yourself alive here." "Oh! I don't know. It is not such a bad sort of life," said George wearily. "Here I have no cares, and fuss, and bother, no visitors to bore, and no bores to visit. Nobody comes to borrow or beg. There is no necessity for playing at compliments with people for whom you do not care a straw, and who care for you less. Here is, instead, the sea, and the shore, and the woods, and the hills, a fair table, a good enough washerwoman, and people around you who never speak till they are spoken to. What more can a fellow want?" Ned made no reply. He was puffing his cigar in silence, and following the curling smoke with his eye as he blew it against the light--a favorite fashion of his when thinking to himself. He was thinking now, rapidly, how changed was his friend in so short a time. He was wondering where all the ardent spirit and high hopes that fired him a few years back had gone. Contact with the world, instead of crushing, had raised his own hopes the more. Why had it not done the same for Howard? He could find no solution to the difficulty; for life to him was a glorious battle, and inaction worse than death. His friend must have encountered some great shock, some bitter disappointment, at the outset. He was seeking the clew in the smoke apparently. After a painful pause, he at length asked: "How long have you been here now, George?"