And who was Rory, and who was Ralph? These questions are very soon answered. Roderick Elphinston and Ralph Leigh were, or had been, students at the University of Cambridge. They had been "inseparables" all through the curriculum, and firm friends from the very first day they had met together. And yet in appearance, and indeed in character, they were entirely different. Ralph was a great broad-shouldered, pleasant-faced young Saxon Rory was small as to stature, but lithe and wiry in the extreme; his face was always somewhat pale, but his eyes had all the glitter and fire of a wild cat in them. Well, then, if you do not like the "wild cat," I shall say "poet"--the glitter and fire of a poet. And a poet he was, though he seldom wrote verses. Oh! it is not always the verses one writes that prove him to be a poet. Very often it is just the reverse. I know a young man who has written more verses than would stretch from Reading to Hyde Park, and there is just as much poetry in that young man's soul as there is in the flagstaff on my lawn yonder. But Rory's soul was filled with life and imagination, a gladsome glowing life that could not be restrained, but that burst upwards like a fountain in the sunlight, giving joy to all around. Everything in nature was understood and loved by Rory, and everything in nature seemed to love him in return; the birds and beasts made a confidant of him, and the very trees and the tenderest flowerets in garden or field seemed to whisper to him and tell him all their secrets. And just because he was so full of life he was also full of fun. When silent and thinking, this young Irishman's face was placid, and even somewhat melancholy in expression, but it lighted up when he spoke, and it was wonderfully quick in its changes from grave to gay, or gay to grave. It was like a rippling summer sea with cloud-shadows chasing each other all over it. Like most of his countrymen, Rory was brave even to a fault. Well, then, there you have his description in a few words, and if you will not let me call him poet, I really do not know what else to call him. Ralph Leigh I must dismiss with a word. But, in a word, he was in my opinion everything that a young English gentleman should be; he was straightforward, bold and manly, and though very far from being as clever as Rory, he loved Rory for possessing the qualities he himself was deficient in. Thoroughly guileless was honest Ralph, and indeed, if the truth must be told, he was not a little proud of his companion, and he was never better pleased than when, along with Rory in the company of others, the Irishman was what Ralph called "in fine form." At such times Ralph would not have interrupted the flow of Rory's wit for the world, but the quiet and happy glance he would give round the room occasionally, to see if other people were listening to and fully appreciating his adopted brother, spoke volumes.