Pole sighed over her delicate young peas as
she left them on one side of her plate untasted;
for they would drop between the prongs. I
looked at my host: the peas were going
wholesale into his capacious mouth, shovelled
up by his large round-ended knife. I saw,
I imitated, I survived! My friends, in spite
of my precedent, could not muster up courage
enough to do an ungenteel thing; and, if
Mr. Holbrook had not been so heartily
hungry, he would, probably, have seen that
the good peas went away almost untouched.

After dinner, a clay-pipe was brought in,
and a spittoon; and, asking us to retire to
another room, where he would soon join us
if we disliked tobacco-smoke, he presented his
pipe to Miss Matey, and requested her to fill
the bowl. This was a compliment to a lady
in his youth; but it was rather inappropriate
to propose it as an honour to Miss Matey,
who had been trained by her sister to hold
smoking of every kind in utter abhorrence.
But if it was a shock to her refinement, it
was also a gratification to her feelings to be
thus selected; so she daintily stuffed the
strong tobacco into the pipe; and then we
withdrew.

"It is very pleasant dining with a bachelor,"
said Miss Matey, softly, as we settled
ourselves in the counting-house. "I only hope
it is not improper; so many pleasant things
are!"

"What a number of books he has!" said
Miss Pole, looking round the room. "And
how dusty they are!"

"I think it must be like one of the great Dr.
Johnson's rooms," said Miss Matey. "What
a superior man your cousin must be!"

"Yes!" said Miss Pole; "he's a great
reader; but I am afraid he has got into very
uncouth habits with living alone."

"Oh! uncouth is too hard a word. I should
call him eccentric; very clever people always
are!" replied Miss Matey.

When Mr. Holbrook returned, he proposed
a walk in the fields; but the two elder ladies
were afraid of damp, and dirt; and had only
very unbecoming calashes to put on over their
caps; so they declined; and I was again his
companion in a turn which he said he was
obliged to take, to see after his niece. He
strode along, either wholly forgetting my
existence, or soothed into silence by his pipe—
and yet it was not silence exactly. He walked
before me, with a stooping gait, his hands
clasped behind him; and, as some tree or
cloud or glimpse at distant upland pastures,
struck him, he quoted poetry to himself; saying
it out loud in a grand sonorous voice, with
just the emphasis that true feeling and
appreciation give. We came upon an old cedar-
tree, which stood at one end of the house;

"More black than ash-buds in the front of March,
A cedar spread his dark-green layers of shade."

"Capital term—'layers!' Wonderful man!"
I did not know whether he was speaking to
me or not; but I put in an assenting
"wonderful," although I knew nothing about it;
just because I was tired of being forgotten,
and of being consequently silent.

He turned sharp round. "Aye! you may
say 'wonderful.' Why, when I saw the review
of his poems in 'Blackwood,' I set off within
an hour, and walked seven miles to Misselton
(for the horses were not in the way), and
ordered them. Now, what colour are ash-buds
in March?"

Is the man going mad? thought I. He is
very like Don Quixote.

"What, colour are they, I say?" repeated
he, vehemently.

"I am sure I don't know, sir," said I; with
the meekness of ignorance.

"I knew you didn't. No more did I—an old
fool that I am! till this young man comes and
tells me. Black as ash-buds in March. And
I've lived all my life in the country; more
shame for me not to know. Black; they are
jet-black, madam." And he went off again,
swinging along to the music of some rhyme
he had got hold of.

When we came home, nothing would serve
him but that he must read us the poems he
had been speaking of; and Miss Pole
encouraged him in his proposal, I thought,
because she wished me to hear his beautiful
reading, of which she had boasted; but she
afterwards said it was because she had got to
a difficult part of her crochet, and wanted to
count her stitches without having to talk.
Whatever he had proposed would have been
right to Miss Matey; although she did fall
sound asleep within five minutes after he
began a long poem, called "Locksley Hall,"
and had a comfortable nap, unobserved, till
he ended; when the cessation of his voice
wakened her up, and she said, feeling that
something was expected, and that Miss Pole
was counting:—

"What a pretty book!"

"Pretty! madam! it's beautiful! Pretty,
indeed!"

"Oh yes! I meant beautiful!" said she,
fluttered at his disapproval of her word.
"It is so like that beautiful poem of Dr.
Johnson's my sister used to read—I forget the
name of it; what was it, my dear?" turning
to me.

"Which do you mean, ma'am? What was
it about?"

"I don't remember what it was about, and
I've quite forgotten what the name of it was;
but it was written by Dr. Johnson, and was
very beautiful, and very like what Mr.
Holbrook has just been reading."

"I don't remember it," said he, reflectively.
"but I don't know Dr. Johnson's poems well.
I must read them."

As we were getting into the fly to return,
I heard Mr. Holbrook say he should call on
the ladies soon, and inquire how they got
home; and this evidently pleased and
fluttered Miss Matey at the time he said it; but