"Ah," he continued, yet more earnestly, while the whole character of his varying countenance changed again—"ah! if indeed I could discover what I seek—one who with the heart of a child has the mind of a woman; one who beholds in nature the variety, the charm, the never feverish, ever healthful excitement that others vainly seek in the bastard sentimentalities of a life false with artificial forms; one who can comprehend, as by intuition, the rich poetry with which creation is clothed—poetry so clear to the child when enraptured with the flower, or when wondering at the star? If on me such exquisite companionship were bestowed—why, then"—he paused, sighed deeply, and, covering his face with his hand, resumed in faltering accents,—
"But once—but once only, did such vision of the Beautiful made human rise before me—amidst 'golden exhalations of the dawn.' It beggared my life in vanishing. You know only—you only—how—how"—
He bowed his head, and the tears forced themselves through his clenched fingers.
"So long ago!" said Audley, sharing his friend's emotion. "Years so long and so weary, yet still thus tenacious of a mere boyish memory."
"Away with it, then!" cried Harley, springing to his feet, and with a laugh of strange merriment. "Your carriage still waits; set me home before you go to the House."
Then laying his hand lightly on his friend's shoulder, he said, "Is it for you, Audley Egerton, to speak sneeringly of boyish memories? What else is it that binds us together? What else warms my heart when I meet you? What else draws your thoughts from blue-books and beer-bills, to waste them on a vagrant like me? Shake hands. Oh, friend of my boyhood! recollect the oars that we plied and the bats that we wielded in the old time, or the murmured talk on the moss-grown bank, as we sat together, building in the summer air castles mightier than Windsor. Ah! they are strong ties, those boyish memories, believe me! I remember as if it were yesterday my translation of that lovely passage in Perseus, beginning—let me see—ah!—
"Quum primum pavido custos mihi purpura cessit,"
that passage on friendship which gushes out so livingly from the stern heart of the satirist. And when old —— complimented me on my verses, my eye sought yours. Verily, I now say as then,
"Nescio quod, certe est quod me tibi temperet astrum."[8]
Audley turned away his head as he returned the grasp of his friend's hand; and while Harley, with his light elastic footstep, descended the stairs, Egerton lingered behind, and there was no trace of the worldly man upon his countenance when he took his place in the carriage by his companion's side.