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CHAPTER VII.

A YOUNG AMBASSADOR.

MR EDWARD HAREFEL, stepping quickly along the little path, by the shy stream which runs into the bushes and is betrayed by laughter, through the meadows awaking to the spring and glad with the short-lived beauty of daffodils, a young man with poetry made visible around him and breathing in the air, was yet not making sonnets. Corydon was guiltless of verses, and was going to Amaryllis for advice. Very early in life he had acquired the notion that it was the joint duty of Miss Katharine and himself to keep Irvine Dale out of mischief. Though Irvine was older and cleverer than his guardians, he still needed looking after, as so many dangerously clever young persons do. So Mr Edward was on his way to Miss Katharine with two portentous letters, which he had received from Italy

that morning. He and she had often consulted about their eccentric friend; and though this matter looked terribly grave, there was for him much sweetness in the thought of being once more associated with her. She was a young lady now, and exquisitely fair.

The letters which Harefel had received that morning had been written, the one at Amalfi, the other at Rome. He opened his cousin's first :—

"DEAR NED,-Why ask about my plans? I won't make any. I won't go back to Oxford at present. Why should I? If the College object, they may send me down. To have to think of the place is bad enough. It is like a tomb of cold grey stone, a tomb where young men bury their hope and faith. As to charity, if tolerance be charity, let us rub out the old passage about charity suffering much, and put in Charity cares for none of these things.' The glorious crown of the highest education of the country is a fine indifference as to what becomes of your neighbour. Let him go to the devil in his own way. We will not interfere, and we pride ourselves on our toleration. Let us alone. Don't ask us to do anything. So much may be said for doing the opposite. Some are active

enough, of course, picking up scraps of knowledge, which will gain marks, which will bring money. Good, sensible souls! Why am I not of them? For me our great, world-renowned, historic, bloated University is but a cumbrous machine for producing bags of wind, a Juggernaut, a school of paralysis. Dear old boy, you will shake your head over my nonsense. Of course I know, Oxonian as I am, that so much is to be said on the other side. The truth is, that I am sick to death of my little list of rules for purifying religion, elevating humanity, reforming the universe. When I went up to Oxford, I had an awful appetite for these things. It seemed so easy to do almost everything, when one once understood it all. Here were people all about ready to make us understand. It was intoxicating to acquire so much knowledge. On Monday, I chanced on a law which explained all the processes of the universe. On Tuesday, I came across a system to which all people might so easily conform, and become on a sudden wise and good. On Wednesday, I found that my law was attacked and my system demolished. On Thursday, I saw the great beauty of toleration; there was some truth on every view of a subject. O liberty!' I cried on Friday, and glowed with a generous enthusiasm for

my neighbour's right to get drunk. On Saturday, I was ready to cry Vanity' with the Preacher; and on Sunday, lo! there was vanity in the pulpit. Of course, I am a very poor creature, and I am not strong enough to stand it. I feel like a lucky brute escaped out of a trap. My old formulæ hang in shreds about me. I am well out of my plans for reforming everything and everybody. I will try to reform myself, and one of my first reforms shall be ceasing to write about myself. You are so awfully good and kind, that I can't help inflicting myself upon you. When I think what a prig I have been for my first two years at Oxford, I despise myself. I hope that is the beginning of wisdom. I believe that in my heart I was glad that a bad thing was, if I could say a good thing about it. There is a depth. Here, at divine Amalfi, I breathe, and am not worried to death. The sky is full of rest; men and women are unlike humanity with the H writ large; the lithe brown fishermen do not discuss my chances in the schools. I have gained one thing. If I don't believe much in other people, I have ceased to have an arrogant belief in myself. Perhaps I may make something of myself yet. Meanwhile I will drop myself, O most long-suffering Edward!

"I could not stay in Rome. There is too great a jumble. Greek fragments, Roman arches, medieval palaces, new boulevards, cake-shops, balls, Pope, King, Republican, French fashions in the Pantheon, English broughams before St Peter's, bustle, tattle, gossip, above the dust of all those cities which have been Rome. Florence was small, and not beyond my comprehension. The Archers went straight from Florence to Amalfi. They asked me to follow, and so here I am. I caught a glimpse of Leonard Aubrey in the Eternal City, not depressed even by that old monster. He was here, there, and everywhere, on foot and on horseback, dancing, flirting, full of quips and cranks, with eyes as wide open as ever and tongue as ready. It is good to see one of us enjoy life. Every other young man grumbles at his own work, and wants to do something else. Leonard does nothing or everything, and is wildly happy. Did I tell you about my Florentine friends, the Archers ? Sebastian Archer was, it seems, a friend of my father. It is certain that he is a character. Lazy with a magnificent laziness, but a great man of business. He pulls strings in every capital of Europe, and is rich and poor according to the fluctuation of loans. He is painter, musician, journalist, once a diplomat, perhaps a hungry Græ