as any, perhaps, in Europe, with smooth skins and features as nature made them; but in the times I talk of, vaccination, alas! was unknown; and whatever the traveller we speak of might have been before he had been attacked by the smallpox, the traces which that horrible malady had left upon his face had deprived it of every vestige of beauty--if, indeed, we except his eyes and eyelashes, which had been spared as if just to redeem his countenance from the frightful. They--his eyes and eyelashes--were certainly fine, very fine; but they were like the beauty of Tadmor in the wilderness, for all was ugliness around them. However, his countenance had a good-humoured expression, which made up for much; neither was it of that vulgar ugliness which robes and ermine but serve to render more low and unprepossessing. But still, when first you saw him, you could not but feel that he was excessively plain; and yet there was always something at the heart which made one--as the ravages of the disease struck the eye--think, if not say, "What a pity!"

The dress of the two strangers was alike, and it was military; but although an officer of those days did not feel it at all scandalous or wrong to show himself in his regimentals, yet such was not the case in the present instance; and the habiliments of the two horsemen consisted, as far as could be seen, of a blue riding-coat, bound round the waist by a crimson scarf, with a pair of heavy boots, of that form which afterward obtained the name of Pendragon. Swords were at their sides, and--as was usual in those days, even for the most pacific travellers--large fur-covered holsters were at their saddle-bows; so that, although they had no servants with them, and were evidently of that class of society upon which the more liberal-minded prey and have preyed in all ages, there was about them "something dangerous," to attack which would have implied great necessity or a very combative disposition.

As the travellers rode on, the gipsy men, without moving from the places they had before occupied, eyed them from under their bent brows, affecting withal hardly to see them; while the urchins ran like young apes by the side of their horses, performing all sorts of antics, and begging hard for halfpence; and at length a girl of about fifteen or sixteen--notwithstanding some forcible injunctions to forbear on the part of the old woman who was tending the caldron--sprang up the bank, beseeching the gentlemen, in the usual singsong of her tribe, to cross her hand with silver, and have their fortunes told; promising them at the same time a golden future, and, like Launcelot, "a pretty trifle of wives."

In regard to her chiromantic science the gentlemen were obdurate, though each of them gave her one of those flat polished pieces of silver which were sixpences in our young days; and having done this, they rode on, turning for a moment or two their conversation, which had been flowing in a very different channel, to the subject of the gipsies they had just passed, moralizing deeply on their strange history and wayward fate, and wondering that no philanthropic government had ever endeavoured to give them a "local habitation and a name" among the sons and daughters of honest industry.

"I am afraid that the attempt would be in vain," answered the younger of the two to his companion. "And besides, it would be doing a notable injustice to the profession of petty larceny to deprive it of its only avowed and honourable professors, while we have too many of its amateur practitioners in the very best society already."

"Nay, nay! Society is not as bad as that would argue it," rejoined the other. "Thank God, there are few thieves or pilferers within the circle of my acquaintance, which is not small."

"Indeed!" said his companion. "Think for a moment, my dear colonel, how many of your dearly-beloved friends are there who, for but a small gratification, would pilfer from you those things that you value most highly! How many would steal from one the affection of one's mistress or wife! How many, for some flimsy honour, some dignity of riband or of place, would pocket the reputation of deeds they had never done! How many, for some party interest or political rancour, would deprive you of your rightful renown, strip you of your credit and your fame, and 'filch from you your good name!' Good God! those gipsies are princes of honesty compared with the great majority of our dear friends and worldly companions."

His fellow-traveller replied nothing for a moment or two, unless a smile, partly gay, partly bitter, could pass for answer. The next minute, however, he read his own comment upon it, saying, "I thought, De Vaux, you were to forget your misanthropy when you returned to England."

"Oh, so I have," replied the other in a gayer tone; "it was only a single seed of the wormwood sprouting up again. But, as you must have seen throughout our journey, my heart is all expansion at coming back again to my native land, and at the prospect of seeing so many beings that I love: though God knows," he added, somewhat gloomily--"God knows whether the love be as fully returned. However, imagination serves me for Prince Ali's perspective glass; and I can see them all, even now, at their wonted occupations, while my vanity dresses up their faces in smiles when they think of my near approach."

His companion sighed; and as he did not at all explain why he did so, we must take the liberty of asking the worthy reader to walk into the tabernacle of his bosom, and examine which of the mind's gods it was that gave forth that oracular sigh, so that the officiating priest may afford the clear interpretation thereof. But, to leave an ill-conceived figure of speech, the simple fact was, that the picture of home, and friends, and smiling welcome, and happy love, which his companion's speech had displayed, had excited somewhat like envy in the breast of Colonel Manners. Envy, indeed, properly so called, it was not; for the breast of Colonel Manners was swept out and garnished every day by a body of kindly spirits, who left not a stain of envy, hatred, or malice in any corner thereof. The proper word would have been regret; for regret it certainly was that he felt when he reflected that, though he had many of what the world calls friends, and a milky-way of acquaintances--though he was honoured and esteemed wherever he came, and felt a proud consciousness that he deserved to be so--yet that on all the wide surface of the earth there was no sweet individual spot where dearer love, and brighter smiles, and outstretched arms, glad voices, and sparkling eyes, waited to welcome the wanderer home from battle, and danger, and privation, and fatigue. He felt that there was a vacancy to him in all things; that the magic chain of life's associations wanted a link; and he sighed--not with envy, but with regret. That it was so was partly owing to events over which he had no control. Left an orphan at an early age, the father's mansion and the mother's bosom he had never known; and neither brother nor sister had accompanied his pilgrimage through life. His relations were all distant ones; and though (being the last of a long line) great care had been bestowed upon his infancy and youth, yet all the sweet ties and kindred fellowship which gather thickly round us in a large family were wanting to him.

So far his isolated situation depended upon circumstances which he could neither alter nor avoid; but that he had not created for himself a home, and ties as dear as those which fortune had at first denied him, depended on himself; or rather what in vulgar parlance is called a crotchet, which was quite sufficiently identified with his whole nature, to be considered as part of himself, though it was mingled intimately--woven in and out--with qualities of a very different character.

This crotchet--for that is the only term