'I hope you will,' was the good-humoured reply.

'Eh?' demanded Mr. Honeythunder.

'Only a poor little joke. Not worth repeating.'

'Joke? Ay; I never see a joke,' Mr. Honeythunder frowningly
retorted. 'A joke is wasted upon me, sir. Where are they? Helena
and Neville, come here! Mr. Crisparkle has come down to meet you.'

An unusually handsome lithe young fellow, and an unusually handsome
lithe girl; much alike; both very dark, and very rich in colour;
she of almost the gipsy type; something untamed about them both; a
certain air upon them of hunter and huntress; yet withal a certain
air of being the objects of the chase, rather than the followers.
Slender, supple, quick of eye and limb; half shy, half defiant;
fierce of look; an indefinable kind of pause coming and going on
their whole expression, both of face and form, which might be
equally likened to the pause before a crouch or a bound. The rough
mental notes made in the first five minutes by Mr. Crisparkle would
have read thus, verbatim.

He invited Mr. Honeythunder to dinner, with a troubled mind (for
the discomfiture of the dear old china shepherdess lay heavy on
it), and gave his arm to Helena Landless. Both she and her
brother, as they walked all together through the ancient streets,
took great delight in what he pointed out of the Cathedral and the
Monastery ruin, and wondered--so his notes ran on--much as if they
were beautiful barbaric captives brought from some wild tropical
dominion. Mr. Honeythunder walked in the middle of the road,