CHAPTER II.

Faust. Wohin soll es nun gehn ? MEPHIsT. Wohin es Dir gefallt. Wir sehn die kleine, dann die grosse Welt. Faust.
Draw your chair to the fireside, brush clean the hearth, and trim the lights. Oh, home of sleekness, order, substance, comfort! Oh, excellent thing art thou, Matter of Fact!
It is some time after the date of the last chapter. Here we are, not in moonlit islands or mouldering castles, but in a room twenty-six feet by twenty-two, — well carpeted, well cushioned, solid arm-chairs and eight such bad pictures, in such fine frames, upon the walls! Thomas Mervale, Esq., merchant, of London, you are an enviable dog!
It was the easiest thing in the world for Mervale, on returning from his Continental episode of life, to settle down to his desk, — his heart had been always there. The death of his father gave him, as a birthright, a high position in a respectable though second-rate firm. To make this establishment first-rate was an honorable ambition, — it was his! He had lately married, not entirely for money, — no! he was worldly rather than mercenary. He had no romantic ideas of love; but he was too sensible a man not to know that a wife should
1, Whither go now!