my chamber as I think fit; sit still and say nothing without bidding
me be merry. When the gentlemen of the country come to see him, he
only shows me at a distance: as I have been walking in his fields, I
have observed them stealing a sight of me over an hedge, and have
heard the knight desiring them not to let me see them, for that I
hated to be stared at.

I am the more at ease in Sir Roger's family, because it consists of
sober and staid persons: for, as the knight is the best master in the
world, he seldom changes his servants; and, as he is beloved by all
about him, his servants never care for leaving him; by this means his
domestics are all in years, and grown old with their master. You would
take his valet-de-chambre for his brother; his butler is gray-headed;
his groom is one of the gravest men that I have ever seen; and his
coachman has the looks of a privy-councillor. You see the goodness of
the master even in the old house-dog, and in a gray pad that is kept
in the stable with great care and tenderness, out of regard to his
past services, tho he has been useless for several years.

I could not but observe with a great deal of pleasure the joy that
appeared in the countenance of these ancient domestics upon my
friend's arrival at his country-seat. Some of them could not refrain
from tears at the sight of their old master; every one of them prest
forward to do something for him, and seemed discouraged if they were
not employed. At the same time the good old knight, with a mixture of
the father and the master of the family, tempered the inquiries after
his own affairs with several kind questions relating to themselves.
This humanity and good-nature engages everybody to him, so that, when
he is pleasant upon any of them, all his family are in good humor, and
none so much as the person whom he diverts himself with: on the
contrary, if he coughs, or betrays any infirmity of old age, it is
easy for a stander-by to observe a secret concern in the looks of all
his servants.

My worthy friend has put me under the particular care of his butler,
who is a very prudent man, and, as well as the rest of his fellow
servants, wonderfully desirous of pleasing me, because they have often
heard their master talk of me as of his particular friend.

My chief companion, when Sir Roger is diverting himself in the woods
or the fields, is a very venerable man who is ever with Sir Roger, and
has lived at his house in the nature of