country and with himself, he mounted on a stage coach for a second time, and for a longer journey than that of the preceding day. On the box seat sat the same gentleman who had occupied that seat on the other coach, and who had kept silence during the discussion between the upholders of the antagonistic creeds. A glance of the eye, a something, resembling recognition, passed between him and Hardy, as the latter once more took his post behind the coachman. There was no one beside him on this occasion, and his fellow traveller seemed at first disposed to preserve his former silence. It was necessary, however, early in the journey to cross a ferry. Leaving the coach by which they set out on one side, they were taken up by another on the opposite, where all the luggage and passengers had been carried over. During the short transit in the boat, the box man and the roof man were brought more directly face to face than they had yet been. The former made an observation, one

meant to draw the young man out; his reply was animated and agreeable, perhaps flattering, yet undesignedly so.

From this commencement sprang some occasional remarks, first on the beautiful scenery through which they were passingthen, on Bristol-then, on the state of trade -then, on the state of the country. Although the conversation of Hardy's companions of the day before had excited his curiosity at the moment, and stirred in him some grave reflections, yet it must be confessed that commonplace as was the course which his present fellow traveller's talk, it awoke in him a much more lively interest than theirs. It was about that of which he was most eager to know as much as he could, "the world"-the world of men-and of men of business. The box speaker did not appear superior in station to the haranguers of the day before; but there was about him what indicated a higher grade of mental cultivation than that to which they had at

tained,—not the cultivation of literature or of polemics, but of the art and practice of life. In his face there was neither the keen restlessness of the rational christian, as the one man called himself, nor the dogged heaviness of the upholder of faith and predestination, but instead, a remarkable shrewdness and boldness. Talent and honesty, Hardy pronounced them to himself.

Whether the stranger merited this estimate of him, we will not say; but it is certain that this was precisely the estimate which he made of my young friend. The talent and honesty with the determined soft relying expression of Hardy's countenance, seen to advantage when they looked at each other eye to eye, had attracted the elder traveller. He had reached Dante's mezzo cammin della vita-the half way house of life-and at that point, a companion with the ardor and ingenuousness of youth best pleases. A companion too, who listens to your savoir vivre and your savoir faire with the doci

lity of a disciple is doubly agreeable; even though you may not have, as an under current thought, the idea that the docility might at some period be made use of to your own advantage.

It can scarcely be said, however, that the instructor made night charming by his discourse. From time to time it was interrupted, for he was neither an arguer nor a perpetual haranguer, but when renewed it was always, only another branch of the same theme-the state of trade-the state of the country—for those two subjects were one in his opinion.

Up rose the sun whilst they sped along, and a ruddy gleam lighting his features as he turned to Hardy to recommence the talk after a longer pause then usual, his face was startling to the youth. It bore the public ruin, the civil war in the countenance of Cataline himself. But if startled, my friend was also more interested in what he heard. This man was a speaker of facts and cer

tainties, things coming home to the practical mind of the young determined founder of a position for himself in the world. The man of facts was a mercantile man, and a radical reformer.

Hardy was not unused to hear from Mr. Aveley some of the "thoughts that breathe and words that burn," which come from the devotion to freedom of a noble soul. In the cause of freedom, Charles Aveley could have died. But with all the indignant warmth with which he condemned many, indeed most, of the public measures of the time, there mingled a generous pride, in belonging to a country which had, notwithstanding, done well in the cause so dear to him. Certain it is, he spoke of England and liberty not at all as the stage coach traveller spoke.

The young man was amazed and confounded to learn, that over his native land, from north to south, from east to west, was spread a strong network of abuses, in the meshes of which, the man who was struggling