the stranger awaiting me at the door of the inn. 'Like yourself,
I am fond of walking,' said he, 'and when any little business calls me to
this place I generally come on foot.'

We were soon out of the town, and in a very beautiful country. After
proceeding some distance on the high-road, we turned off, and were
presently in one of those mazes of lanes for which England is famous; the
stranger at first seemed inclined to be taciturn; a few observations,
however, which I made appeared to rouse him, and he soon exhibited not
only considerable powers of conversation, but stores of information which
surprised me. So pleased did I become with my new acquaintance that I
soon ceased to pay the slightest attention either to place or distance.
At length the stranger was silent, and I perceived that we had arrived at
a handsome iron gate and a lodge; the stranger having rung a bell, the
gate was opened by an old man, and we proceeded along a gravel path,
which in about five minutes brought us to a large brick house, built
something in the old French style, having a spacious lawn before it, and
immediately in front a pond in which were golden fish, and in the middle
a stone swan discharging quantities of water from its bill. We ascended
a spacious flight of steps to the door, which was at once flung open, and
two servants with powdered hair and in livery of blue plush came out and
stood one on either side as we passed the threshold. We entered a large
hall, and the stranger, taking me by the hand, welcomed me to his poor
home, as he called it, and then gave orders to another servant, but out
of livery, to show me to an apartment, and give me whatever assistance I
might require in my toilet. Notwithstanding the plea as to primitive
habits which I had lately made to my other host in the town, I offered no
objection to this arrangement, but followed the bowing domestic to a
spacious and airy chamber, where he rendered me all those little nameless
offices which the somewhat neglected state of my dress required. When
everything had been completed to my perfect satisfaction, he told me that
if I pleased he would conduct me to the library, where dinner would be
speedily served.

In the library I found a table laid for two; my host was not there,
having as I supposed not been quite so speedy with his toilet as his
guest. Left alone, I looked round the apartment with inquiring eyes; it
was long and tolerably lofty, the walls from t