of us thought it so at the
time. The minister used to listen to my accounts of Mr Holdsworth's
many accomplishments and various adventures in travel with the truest
interest, and most kindly good faith; and Mr Holdsworth in return liked
to hear about my visits to the farm, and description of my cousin's
life there--liked it, I mean, as much as he liked anything that was
merely narrative, without leading to action.

So I went to the farm certainly, on an average, once a month during
that autumn; the course of life there was so peaceful and quiet, that I
can only remember one small event, and that was one that I think I took
more notice of than any one else: Phillis left off wearing the
pinafores that had always been so obnoxious to me; I do not know why
they were banished, but on one of my visits I found them replaced by
pretty linen aprons in the morning, and a black silk one in the
afternoon. And the blue cotton gown became a brown stuff one as winter
drew on; this sounds like some book I once read, in which a migration
from the blue bed to the brown was spoken of as a great family event.

Towards Christmas my dear father came to see me, and to consult Mr
Holdsworth about the improvement which has since been known as
'Manning's driving wheel'. Mr Holdsworth, as I think I have before
said, had a very great regard for my father, who had been employed in
the same great machine-shop in which Mr Holdsworth had served his
apprenticeship; and he and my father had many mutual jokes about one of
these gentlemen-apprentices who used to set about his smith's work in
white wash-leather gloves, for fear of spoiling his hands. Mr
Holdsworth often spoke to me about my father as having the same kind of
genius for mechanical invention as that of George Stephenson, and my
father had come over now to consult him about several improvements, as
well as an offer of partnership. It was a great pleasure to me to see
the mutual regard of these two men. Mr Holdsworth, young, handsome,
keen, well-dressed, an object of admiration to all the youth of Eltham;
my father, in his decent but unfashionable Sunday clothes, his plain,
sensible face full of hard lines, the marks of toil and thought,--his
hands, blackened beyond the power of soap and water by years of labour
in the foundry; speaking a strong Northern dialect, while Mr Holdsworth
had a long soft drawl in his voice, as many of the Southerners have,
and was reckoned in Eltham to give himself