d
stay so long, without seeing some romance or other work itself out under
my eyes; and I cannot help thinking that the Landlady is to be the
heroine of the love-history like to unfold itself. I think I see the
little cloud in the horizon, with a silvery lining to it, which may end
in a rain of cards tied round with white ribbons. Extremes meet, and who
so like to be the other party as the elderly gentleman at the other end
of the table, as far from her now as the length of the board permits? I
may be mistaken, but I think this is to be the romantic episode of the
year before me. Only it seems so natural it is improbable, for you never
find your dropped money just where you look for it, and so it is with
these a priori matches.

This gentleman is a tight, tidy, wiry little man, with a small, brisk
head, close-cropped white hair, a good wholesome complexion, a quiet,
rather kindly face, quick in his movements, neat in his dress, but fond
of wearing a short jacket over his coat, which gives him the look of a
pickled or preserved schoolboy. He has retired, they say, from a
thriving business, with a snug property, suspected by some to be rather
more than snug, and entitling him to be called a capitalist, except that
this word seems to be equivalent to highway robber in the new gospel of
Saint Petroleum. That he is economical in his habits cannot be denied,
for he saws and splits his own wood, for exercise, he says,--and makes
his own fires, brushes his own shoes, and, it is whispered, darns a hole
in a stocking now and then,--all for exercise, I suppose. Every summer
he goes out of town for a few weeks. On a given day of the month a wagon
stops at the door and takes up, not his trunks, for he does not indulge
in any such extravagance, but the stout brown linen bags in which he
packs the few conveniences he carries with him.

I do not think this worthy and economical personage will have much to do
or to say, unless he marries the Landlady. If he does that, he will play
a part of some importance,--but I don't feel sure at all. His talk is
little in amount, and generally ends in some compact formula condensing
much wisdom in few words, as that a man, should not put all his eggs in
one basket; that there are as good fish in the sea as ever came out of
it; and one in particular, which he surprised me by saying in pretty good
French one day, to the effect that the inheritance of the world belongs
to the phlegmatic people