"Your cousin?" And he turned to me, who had been examining with a sad and envious eye the contents of the bookshelves. Our eyes met, and first a faint blush, and then a smile of recognition, passed over his magnificent countenance. "I think I had--I am ashamed that I cannot say the pleasure, of meeting him at the boat race yesterday." My cousin looked inquiringly and vexed at us both. The nobleman smiled. "Oh, the fault was mine, not his." "I cannot think," I answered, "that you have any reasons to remember with shame your own kindness and courtesy. As for me," I went on bitterly, "I suppose a poor journeyman tailor, who ventures to look on at the sports of gentlemen, only deserves to be run over." "Sir," he said, looking at me with a severe and searching glance, "your bitterness is pardonable--but not your sneer. You do not yourself think what you say, and you ought to know that I think it still less than yourself. If you intend your irony to be useful, you should keep it till you can use it courageously against the true offenders." I looked up at him fiercely enough, but the placid smile which had returned to his face disarmed me. "Your class," he went on, "blind yourselves and our class as much by wholesale denunciations of us, as we, alas! who should know better, do by wholesale denunciations of you. As you grow older, you will learn that there are exceptions to every rule." "And yet the exception proves the rule." "Most painfully true, sir. But that argument is two-edged. For instance, am I to consider it the exception or the rule, when I am told that you, a journeyman tailor, are able to correct these proofs for me?" "Nearer the rule, I think, than you yet fancy." "You speak out boldly and well; but how can you judge what I may please to fancy? At all events, I will make trial of you. There are the proofs. Bring them to me by four o'clock this afternoon, and if they are well done, I will pay you more than I should do to the average hack-writer, for you will deserve more." I took the proofs; he turned to go, and by a side-look at George beckoned him out of the room. I heard a whispering in the passage; and I do not deny that my heart beat high with new hopes, as I caught unwillingly the words-- "Such a forehead!--such an eye!--such a contour of feature as that!--Locule mi--that boy ought not to be mending trousers." My cousin returned, half laughing, half angry. "Alton, you fool, why did you let out that you were a snip?" "I am not ashamed of my trade."