rles drove him about the country, stamped his letters, secured him
his newspapers from the neighbouring town, and listened to his stories
about Oxford and Oxford men. He really liked him, and wished to please
him; but, as to consulting him in any serious matter, or going to him
for comfort in affliction, he would as soon have thought of betaking him
to Dan the pedlar, or old Isaac who played the Sunday bassoon.

"How have your peaches been this year, Malcolm?" said Mr. Reding one day
after dinner to his guest.

"You ought to know that we have no peaches in Oxford," answered Mr.
Malcolm.

"My memory plays me false, then: I had a vision of, at least, October
peaches on one occasion, and fine ones too."

"Ah, you mean at old Tom Spindle's, the jockey's," answered Mr. Malcolm;
"it's true, he had a bit of a brick wall, and was proud of it. But
peaches come when there is no one in Oxford to eat them; so either the
tree, or at least the fruit, is a great rarity there. Oxford wasn't so
empty once; you have old mulberry-trees there in record of better days."

"At that time, too," said Charles, "I suppose, the more expensive fruits
were not cultivated. Mulberries are the witness, not only of a full
college, but of simple tastes."

"Charles is secretly cutting at our hothouse here," said Mr. Reding; "as
if our first father did not prefer fruits and flowers to beef and
mutton."

"No, indeed," said Charles, "I think peaches capital things; and as to
flowers, I am even too fond of scents."

"Charles has some theory, then, about scents, I'll be bound," said his
father; "I never knew a boy who so placed his likings and dislikings on
fancies. He began to eat olives directly he read the OEdipus of
Sophocles; and, I verily believe, will soon give up oranges from his
dislike to King William."

"Every one does so," said Charles: "who would not be in the fashion?
There's Aunt Kitty, she calls a bonnet, 'a sweet' one year, which makes
her 'a perfect fright' the next."

"You're right, papa, in this instance," said his mother; "I know he has
some good reason, though I never can recollect it, why he smells a rose,
or distils lavender. What is it, my dear Mary?"

"'Relics ye are of Eden's bowers,'" said she.

"Why, sir, that was precisely your own reason just now," said Charles to
his father.

"There's more than that," said Mrs. Reding, "if I knew what it was."

"He thinks the scent more intellectual than the other senses," said