If you were to describe that scene to Jack Smith’s friends in the Temple they would jeer at you. They would cover you with ridicule and gibes. There is no one so keen, so sharp, so matter-of-fact, so certain to succeed as he, they say. They have only one fault to find with him, that he works too hard; that he bids fair to become one of those legal machines which may be seen any evening taking in fuel at solitary club tables, and returning afterward to dusty chambers, with the regularity of clockwork. But there is one thing even in his present life which his Temple friends do not know, and which gives me hope of him. Week by week there comes to him a letter from the country from a long-limbed girl in short frocks, whose hero he is. Time, which, like Procrustes’ bed, brings frocks and legs to the same length at last, heals wounds also.
When a day not far distant now shall show him Daintry in the bloom of budding womanhood, is it to be thought that Jack will resist her? I think not. But, be that as it may, with no better savor than that of his loyalty, the silent loyalty of an English friend, could the chronicle of a Bayard—much less the tale of a country town—come to an end.