d 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 honor 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 is 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 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 of 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. "Ay! you may say 'wonderful.' Why, when I saw the
review of his poems in 'Blackwood,' I set off within an hour, and walked
seven mi