ngs towards Phillis Holman. I loved her
dearly as a sister, but I could never fancy her as my wife. Still less
could I think of her ever--yes, condescending, that is the
word--condescending to marry me. I was roused from a reverie on what I
should like my possible wife to be, by hearing my father's warm praise
of the minister, as a most unusual character; how they had got back
from the diameter of driving-wheels to the subject of the Holmans I
could never tell; but I saw that my father's weighty praises were
exciting some curiosity in Mr Holdsworth's mind; indeed, he said,
almost in a voice of reproach,--

'Why, Paul, you never told me what kind of a fellow this
minister-cousin of yours was!'

'I don't know that I found out, sir,' said I. 'But if I had, I don't
think you'd have listened to me, as you have done to my father.'

'No! most likely not, old fellow,' replied Mr Holdsworth, laughing. And
again and afresh I saw what a handsome pleasant clear face his was; and
though this evening I had been a bit put out with him--through his
sudden coming, and his having heard my father's open-hearted
confidence--my hero resumed all his empire over me by his bright merry
laugh.

And if he had not resumed his old place that night, he would have done
so the next day, when, after my father's departure, Mr Holdsworth spoke
about him with such just respect for his character, such ungrudging
admiration of his great mechanical genius, that I was compelled to say,
almost unawares,--

'Thank you, sir. I am very much obliged to you.'

'Oh, you're not at all. I am only speaking the truth. Here's a
Birmingham workman, self-educated, one may say--having never associated
with stimulating minds, or had what advantages travel and contact with
the world may be supposed to afford--working out his own thoughts into
steel and iron, making a scientific name for himself--a fortune, if it
pleases him to work for money--and keeping his singleness of heart, his
perfect simplicity of manner; it puts me out of patience to think of my
expensive schooling, my travels hither and thither, my heaps of
scientific books, and I have done nothing to speak of. But it's
evidently good blood; there's that Mr Holman, that cousin of yours,
made of the same stuff'

'But he's only cousin because he married my mother's second cousin,'
said I.

'That knocks a pretty theory on the head, and twice over, too. I should
like to make Holman's acquaintance.'

'I am s