CHAPTER I.
The Idle Apprentice.
Twelve years! How many events have occurred during that long interval! how many changes have taken place! The whole aspect of things is altered.

The child has sprung into a youth; the youth has become a man; the man has already begun to feel the advances of age.

Beauty has bloomed and faded.

Fresh flowers of loveliness have budded, expanded, died.

The fashions of the day have become antiquated.