“I left my fellow-travellers at the entrance of the town where my sister lived. Now came the contrast. Somewhat hot, rather coarsely clad, and covered with the dust of a long summer’s day, I was ushered into a little drawing-room, eighteen feet by twelve, as I was afterwards somewhat pompously informed. A flaunting carpet, green, red, and yellow, covered the floor. A full-length picture of a thin woman, looking most agreeably ill-tempered, stared down at me from the chimney-piece; three stuffed birds--how emblematic of domestic life!--stood stiff and imprisoned, even after death, in a glass cage. A fire-screen and a bright fireplace; chairs covered with holland, to preserve them from the atmosphere; and long mirrors, wrapped as to the frame-work in yellow muslin, to keep off the flies,--finish the panorama of this watering-place mansion. The door opened, silks rustled, a voice shrieked ‘My Brother!’ and a figure, a thin figure, the original of the picture over the chimney-piece, rushed in.” “I can well fancy her joy,” said the youth. “You can do no such thing, begging your pardon, sir,” resumed King Cole. “She had no joy at all: she was exceedingly surprised and disappointed. In spite of my early adventures, I had nothing picturesque or romantic about me at all. I was very thirsty, and I called for beer; I was very tired, and I lay down on the sofa; I wore thick shoes and small buckles; and my clothes were made God knows where, and were certainly put on God knows how. My sister was miserably ashamed of me: she had not even the manners to disguise it. In a higher rank of life than that which she held she would have suffered far less mortification; for I fancy great people pay but little real attention to externals. Even if a man of rank is vulgar, it makes no difference in the orbit in which he moves: but your ‘genteel gentlewomen’ are so terribly dependent upon what Mrs. Tomkins will say; so very uneasy about their relations and the opinion they are held in; and, above all, so made up of appearances and clothes; so undone if they do not eat, drink, and talk a la mode,--that I can fancy no shame like that of my poor sister at having found, and being found with, a vulgar brother.”