caps to be sent home and tried on, that the
most becoming might be selected to take with
us on Thursday.

She was in a state of silent agitation all
the way to Woodley. She had evidently
never been there before; and, although she
little dreamt I knew anything of her early
story, I could perceive she was in a tremor at
the thought of seeing the place which might
have been her home, and round which it is
probable that many of her innocent girlish
imaginations had clustered. It was a long
drive there, through paved jolting lanes. Miss
Matilda sate bolt upright, and looked
wistfully out of the windows, as we drew near the
end of our journey. The aspect of the country
was quiet and pastoral. Woodley stood among
fields; and there was an old-fashioned garden,
where roses and currant-bushes touched each
other, and where the feathery asparagus
formed a pretty back-ground to the pinks and
gilly-flowers; there was no drive up to the
door: we got out at a little gate, and walked
up a straight box-edged path.

"My cousin might make a drive, I think,"
said Miss Pole, who was afraid of ear-ache,
and had only her cap on.

"I think it is very pretty," said Miss Matey,
with a soft plaintiveness in her voice, and
almost in a whisper; for just then Mr.
Holbrook appeared at the door, rubbing his hands
in very effervescence of hospitality. He
looked more like my idea of Don Quixote than
ever, and yet the likeness was only external.
His respectable housekeeper stood modestly
at the door to bid us welcome; and, while
she led the elder ladies up-stairs to a bed-
room, I begged to look about the garden. My
request evidently pleased the old gentleman;
who took me all round the place, and showed
me his six-and-twenty cows, named after the
different letters of the alphabet. As we went
along, he surprised me occasionally by repeating
apt and beautiful quotations from the
poets, ranging easily from Shakspeare and
George Herbert to those of our own day. He
did this as naturally as if he were thinking
aloud, that their true and beautiful words
were the best expression he could find for
what he was thinking or feeling. To be sure
he called Byron "my lord Byrron," and
pronounced the name of Goethe strictly in
accordance with the English sound of the letters
—"As Goëthe says, 'Ye ever-verdant palaces,'"
&c. Altogether, I never met with a man,
before or since, who had spent so long a life in
a secluded and not impressive country, with
ever-increasing delight in the daily and yearly
change of season and beauty.

When he and I went in, we found that dinner
was nearly ready in the kitchen,—for so I
suppose the room ought to be called, as there were
oak dressers and cupboards all round, all over
by the side of the fire-place, and only a small
Turkey carpet in the middle of the flag-floor.
The room might have been easily made into a
handsome dark-oak dining-parlour, by removing
the oven, and a few other appurtenances
of a kitchen, which were evidently never used;
the real cooking-place being at some distance.
The room in which we were expected to sit
was a stiffly furnished, ugly apartment; but
that in which we did sit was what Mr. Holbrook
called the counting-house, when he paid
his labourers their weekly wages, at a great
desk near the door. The rest of the pretty
sitting-room—looking into the orchard, and all
covered over with dancing tree-shadows—was
filled with books. They lay on the ground,
they covered the walls, they strewed the table.
He was evidently half ashamed and half proud
of his extravagance in this respect. They
were of all kinds,—poetry, and wild weird
tales prevailing. He evidently chose his
books in accordance with his own tastes, not
because such and such were classical, or
established favourites.

"Ah!" he said, "we farmers ought not to
have much time for reading; yet somehow one
can't help it."

"What a pretty room!" said Miss Matey,
sotto voce.

"What a pleasant place! " said I, aloud,
almost simultaneously.

"Nay! if you like it," replied he; "but
can you sit on these great black leather three-
cornered chairs? I like it better than the
best parlour; but I thought ladies would take
that for the smarter place."

It was the smarter place; but, like most
things, not at all pretty, or pleasant, or home-
like; so, while we were at dinner, the servant-
girl dusted and scrubbed the counting-house
chairs, and we sate there all the rest of the
day.

We had pudding before meat; and I
thought Mr. Holbrook was going to make
some apology for his old-fashioned ways, for
he began,

"I don't know whether you like new-
fangled ways."

"Oh! not at all!" said Miss Matey.

"No more do I," said he. "My house-
keeper will have things in her new fashion;
or else I tell her, that when I was a young
man, we used to keep strictly to my father's
rule, 'No broth, no ball; no ball, no beef;'
and always began dinner with broth. Then
we had suet puddings, boiled in the broth
with the beef; and then the meat itself. If
we did not sup our broth, we had no ball,
which we liked a deal better; and the beef
came last of all, and only those had it who
had done justice to the broth and the ball.
Now folks begin with sweet things, and turn
their dinners topsy-turvy."

When the ducks and green peas came, we
looked at each other in dismay; we had only
two-pronged, black-handled forks. It is true,
the steel was as bright as silver; but, what
were we to do? Miss Matey picked up her
peas, one by one, on the point of the prongs,
much as Aminé ate her grains of rice after
her previous feast with the Ghoul. Miss