"'See how one comes across one's friends!' cried Alexander, joyfully. 'I was strolling along to keep an engagement, thinking of anything rather than of seeing either of you here. Close past me goes a figure; I couldn't believe my eyes, but it was Severin. I called to him; he turned round, and was just as glad to see me as I was to meet him. I asked him to come to my house, but he said he had an irresistible desire to come here, so I gave up my engagement, and came here too. His presentiment was right, you see; we have found you here!'
"'The truth is,' said Severin, 'that I felt quite certain I should find you here, and I hardly knew how to keep my patience till you came.'
"'Don't you think Severin looks remarkably well?' said Marzell; 'he has quite got rid of that sickly pallor he used to have, and there are none of those nasty cloud shadows which used to be upon his brow.'
"'I may say just the same of you, dear Marzell,' said Severin; 'for, though you didn't look so seedy as I did--and I really was very far from nourishing, either in body or mind--still, the strange depression and perturbation of spirit you were in had so completely got the upper hand with you, that it had turned your bright young face into the likeness of a crabbed old gentleman's. I suspect both of us have passed through a good deal of purifying purgatorial fire; and Alexander looks as if he had done the same, for he had lost all his good-spirits towards the end, and put on a damned medicine face, where one might read, "a tablespoonful every hour." Whether it was the aunt that was at the bottom of it, or, as I shrewdly suspect, something else, I don't know; at all events, he seems to be a new man now, as well as we.'
"'You're quite right,' said Marzell; 'and, the more I look at the fellow, the more clearly I see what wonders a comfortable income can work here below. Had he ever such rosy cheeks?--such a rounded chin? Don't these sweetly-smiling lips say, "The roast-beef was superior, and the burgundy first quality"?'
"Severin laughed.
"'Observe,' said Marzell, taking Alexander by the arms and turning him round, 'what superfine cloth his coat's made of! Look at the dazzling whiteness of his linen!--that splendid gold chain with about seven hundred seals! Tell us, lad, how you have managed to turn out such a terrific swell? It's so unlike what you used to be. One might almost have said of you, quoting Sir John Falstaff, that you might be wrapped in an eel-skin; and now you're getting almost pudgy. What does it all mean?'
"'Well,' said Alexander, blushing a little, 'have you got anything more to say about me? You know I took my retirement a year ago, and am leading a happy, comfortable life?'
"'The fact is,' said Severin, who had not been listening much to what Marzell was saying, but had been standing lost in thought, 'we parted in a strange sort of fashion; not at all as old friends should.'
"'You, in particular,' said Alexander, 'for you went off without saying a word to either of us.'