therefore, for mouldy passages, for passed through a door at the top of it rooms of impossible shape and dimen- before going from the hall into the sion, for tumble-down staircases, and offices on the ground floor; and, in for pitiful accommodation everywhere; doing so, came upon rooms evidently and I was already rehearsing the con- intended for sleeping-chambers, but of troversy I should have to conduct with much lower pitch than those in the Veronica on this thorny question. But, front of the house, and bearing an altoin company with Father Time and his gether different character. Still thinkwife, who had now joined us, and who, ing of Veronica and her shapely exactwith the exception of her raiment, ing mind, I was a little disconcerted by seemed the very double of himself, in the narrow space of the rooms in this hue, age, manner, and toothless speech, portion of the tenement. But when I I found myself, to my astonishment, emerged from them into the kitchenpassing through the various parts of a garden of which I spoke, I more than dwelling in excellent condition, cased recovered courage, and resolved to dein exceptionally stout walls, and show-fend my future home against all the ing nowhere sigu either of damp or feminine objections in the world. For decay. The hall was little more than a there before me stood a real old manorpassage; but there was a savor of an- house of the end of the fifteenth cenlique taste in its dark-stained oaken tury, made more watertight since, no staircase and in its three ancient door- doubt, with brick here and tile there, ways (through one of which there was but retaining its pristine character, and access to the offices, while the other looking at you with its strong, unaftwo opened on dining-room and draw- fected Tudor face. Clearly, the building-room respectively), which gave it ing consisted rather of two houses than an aspect of dignity too often wanting of one, built "back-to-back," the grey in halls of much larger dimensions. stone tenement, with its greater elevaAn old cottage clock ticked slowly and tion and ampler pretensions, having solemnly in the dining-room, its de-been joined on to its older and humbler liberate measurement of time sound-companion at a later date. Thus what ing all the louder because it was the now was back had once been front, and only piece of furniture in a room whose what had originally been complete in boards, too, were bare. Old Mistress itself had not only been added to, but.. Time had one cardinal virtue at least subordinated to its younger companion. she loved cleanliness, and there was no I could not then, nor can I now, make corner where one could not have sate up my mind which of the two I prefer down to a hearty meal with uncon- to gaze ou. I waver in my liking accerned appetite. Over the dining-room cording to my mood, and just as I revert and drawing - room were two other unconsciously, I suppose, to the temrooms, resembling them in size and per of this century or of that. I kept character, and possessing an unusual walking round from one to the other, aspect of cheerfulness, notwithstand- and felt ineffable peace in musing upon ing their heavy mullioned windows, by both. The quiet August afternoon,. reason of the cross-light which they with its long, motionless shadows, its enjoyed. I observed with satisfaction slight intimation of silver haze, and its that the house looked almost exactly soothing noise of neighboring rooks ; south-east, to my thinking the proper the music of a mill-stream I could just aspect for an English country-house. | overhear, the melodious monotone of Such an aspect ensures morning cheer- contiguous ringdoves, the color of the fulness all the year round, the full advantage of whatever sun there is in winter from dawn practically to sundown, and the exquisite effects of the rising of the moon. nectarines on the wall, the recollection of the ripe and ruddy orchard; all of these seemed to imbue my mind with a. sense of autumnal mellowness, when everything one longs for awaits the I had mounted the staircase, and plucking, and there is nothing more to. It be desired. The outhouses were nu- rafters, have passed through the same merous, and it was evident that the doors and up the same staircases, older dwelling had once been a farm- drunk out of the same cellars and caten stead. But they were in excellent re- out of the same larders I now call pair, and red-tiled like the house itself; mine. I like to think that I am not and the tiles were silvered here and the first to bring life and death, there with the growth and stains of sigh and laughter, merry-making and unremoved lichen. There was accom- mourning, into a human habitation. modation for more horses and carriages is necessary for my contentment, indisthan Veronica and I should ever be peusable to my sense of kinship with likely to want, though the stable and the past, that I should know that baby coach-house fittings were a little rude; feet have, generation after generation, and there were sheds and stalls for kine toddled along the passages, and chiland beasts, and lodges for wagons and dren's vacant voices gladdened the corcarts we should never need. But there ridors which I now tread. I have no was not an eyesore anywhere. The desire to invent anything, but only to road by which I had come ended at the preserve and perpetuate those things house; and at the back of the kitchen- which have long been found good. garden there ran a country lane, prodi- The society of days gone by is the most gally overhung with the foliage of trees friendly and congenial of all forms of in the very heyday of their English companionship, for one peoples and vigor. On the other side of the lane composes it according to the humor of was another park. How wrong Ve- one's imagination. I have never been ronica had been! and what a triumph able to understand why, seeing that I should have over her! Suam quisque one's mother is the most sacred of all domum spatio circumdat, I reiterated to human figures, people's grandmothers myself, with a contentment rivalling should have become a theme for poor that of the cooing wood-pigeons. There and profane wit. Grandmothers, greatwas no sound of crowing cock, of bark- grandmothers, great-great-grandmothing house-dog, of screaming child. Iers, I know, and delight in knowing, could see the grey, square tower of a had sate in the ingle-nooks of what I village church about a mile and a half that day resolved should be my home; away; but that was the only indication all comely, all with spotless lace caps of social life within the range of vision. and cuffs and 'kerchiefs, all kindly, all Retirement, seclusion, and old-world deferred to, all the real guardian angels charm had I not found them all? of the place. Beautiful young girls Through a nail-studded, oaken door, must there have loved and longed, black as ebony with the years, I had kissed and wept, clapped their hands descended into the cellars, and had sat- for joy, and performed innumerable isfied myself that Veronica, who, from offices of domestic helpfulness and taste not from fanaticism, never touches | charity. A new house would be to me wine, would have water of extraordi- as intolerable as a new world. Even narily fine quality to drink. Moreover, though clear as crystal, and brisk to the taste, it was as soft to the hands as velvet or oatmeal. in restless and changeful days like these, the most powerful influence in the present is the influence of the past; just as the influence of our thoughts, I do not know how people consent, actions, and decisions will be felt more save under dire compulsion, to build a a hundred years hence than they are house for themselves or to live in one to-day. Living under the shade of the newly built for them by others. For past, we feel peaceful and secure. my part, I like to think that a long line wonder how many generations of swalof ancestors, either in blood or senti-lows have built their nests and reared ment, have slept under the same roof, their broods under the broad, deep have trodden the same boards, have caves of the hinder portion of the old genially entertained under the same manor-house I that day contemplated I with such forward-looking affection. | worked myself almost into a fever over Four hundred generations of swallows the uncertainty of her verdict upon my and house-martins and starlings Think of that! They were building there when Shakespeare wrote the lines newly found treasure. Talk of sudden enthusiasms ! Veronica fell in love with it fully as promptly as I had done, and a load was lifted off my heart. I never knew her so impulsive, so indisposed to criticise, or averse to investigate. "No, no!" she replied to anything I wished to show her or consult her about. "It is just what we want. Let us go and see the agent at once. You hear it was looked at the day before yesterday by some one else." Only too well pleased to find her in this mood, I gladly consented to drive at once to the house of the agent, who lived, Father Time told us, but a mile away. He received us with all the heartiness of a retired captain of horse, but at once told us that the house was let ! Who had let it? He himself, the agent for the estate, but two days previously. If we liked to go and see the owner of the property, we were free to do so; but it was obvious, he said, we should only be wasting our time. I had surrendered myself so entirely to the mellow sunshine and afternoon shadows of the place, that I fear I had attended but ill to the kindly, if somewhat inarticulate, observations made by Father Time, as he dutifully accompanied me in my devious saunterings. But at length it did dawn upon me, as something not undeserving of my attention, that he had more than once intimated to me that the house had Nevertheless we went; taking anbeen vacant for two years, but that other and a shorter railway journey to "another gentleman yesterday had a place about fifteen miles off, where been to see it and appeared greatly he was staying on visit. I do not like taken by it. But I had so completely to say overmuch concerning the grace appropriated it in my own mind that and attractiveness of Veronica; but I this last piece of information troubled could see plainly enough they were me but little. To-morrow I must bring thoroughly well appreciated on this Veronica to see it, and then the matter occasion. For our new acquaintance would be as good as settled. at once said he should vastly like to have us for tenants. But what could he do? We had received a most kindly welcome, but no practical consolation. I consumed the better part of the evening in chanting its praises to Veronica, while cautiously avowing that some of the rooms were rather small and somewhat low. I saw I was not producing all the effect I intended. Veronica has always chosen to consider me subject to dangerous impulses of enthusiasm, and I suppose she deems it to be her duty to put water into my wine. We were off betimes together on the morrow; and I hardly ever made a more anxious journey. It was impossible for her not to admire the two-mile drive through the park and its stately mansion; but I had Still I was not cast down; for, though it seemed absurd to Veronica, I felt an unshakable conviction that I should live for the rest of my days under the shadow and protection of that venerable oak. I wrote to the country agent, enclosing two cheques, each for the same round sum, and authorizing him to offer one, and then, if necessary, both, to the tenant who had anticipated me, to be off his bargain. He wrote back saying that what I suggested was 4355 not possible, and returning my drafts.. and all of them equally welcome. It Two more days - days of unutterable is a matter of uncertainty whether she disappointment and depression-passed will charm our listening ears with the away; and then there came a note from my future landlord, to the effect that he had "put his foot down," and that he had written to say, as was perfectly true, that he had two agents, one in the country and one iu town, that some confusion and rivalry of claims had arisen in consequence, and that, in order to determine the matter in one way or another, he had decided in my favor. "Of course," he added, "you will pay him any sum in reason for his disappointment." music of the future on the piano I bought expressly for her consummate touch, will sing Tuscan Stornelli by the score, or will play havoc with Veronica's guitar as she invents some madcap accompaniment to the latest production of the Shaftesbury Avenue. Nor is it within the bounds of prediction to say whether she will lead me into labyrinthine dialogues concerning the riddle of the universe, or turn all one's most settled convictions topsyturvy with perfectly sincere paradoxes. But this had been my very own Sometimes she will dote on my flowers, proposition. A few days later he en- and make herself the very Flora of the closed me a note from the disappointed garden; sometimes she seems hardly house-hunter, saying that he had been to know that it is there, and rambles put to a good deal of trouble and ex-discursively, yet always with suggestive peuse, and he could not ask, by way point, through all the picture-galleries of compensation, for less than ten of Europe. She has no opinions, or, at pounds! any rate, they are held provisionally, and until further notice. But, indeed, it is too much to say that they are "held"—except in solution, for she does not seem anxious to solve anything. Her mind points to the four quarters of the wind, and, like it, veers unaccountably. Nor was I quite accurate when I said she has every mood, for she is always exhilaratingly cheerful; delivering herself sometimes of the most gloomy prophecies concerning the future of mankind in the highest spirits. Veronica says this is my favorite story, and that I have told it too often. But I never get tired of telling it; and I tell it again to myself whenever any piece of small ill-fortune happens to me, and I still want to think myself a favorite of the gods and to have a hearty laugh over that ten pounds. Spring is tidy, of herself. She has the natural finish and clean-looking bloom of youth. She sheds no dead leaves for you to sweep up, flings about no rotten branches for you to carry away. She is spick-and-span in her new raiment. She has none of the redundant growth of summer, and the blossoms she sends floating on the breeze make less litter even than autumn gossamer. Thus I was unusually untroubled concerning the reputation of the garden that I love and Veronica's mild reprehensions, and had just settled down in a bend of the South Enclosure to a perusal of M. Martha's "Les Moralistes de l'Empire Romain," when I heard her calling: "Here they are " I never know what aspect Lamia will be pleased to present when she brings her radiant presence to our roof; she has so many and such various moods, I cannot quite make out what she thinks of the Poet; but I suspect she somewhat resents his uncompromising good sense, and Veronica's occasionally unfortunate championship of him. I have never been able to understand why such a fuss should be made about what is called fame, and how any rational human being can desire to obtain it. In the porch of the little church of Kermaria, near Perros-Guirec, in Brittany, I once read the words inscribed on a tablet to a deceased priest, Amavit nesciri et pro nihilo reputari. That seems to me the utterance of a sage as well as a saint. But our men of the time appear to think differently. I must confess, in justice to Veronica's perpetually calling attention to himself by some extravagant utterance. "But I think," urged Veronica, “I could name poets that have achieved considerable celebrity in their lifetime, yet who were, on the whole, perfectly respectable members of society." poet, that I see no indication of his with his neighbor's wife, and to be troubling himself concerning his position in this world. Perhaps that only causes her to be more solicitous on the subject, and, I suppose, she shares the general desire of her sex to see some solid and practical evidence of success. She reverted to her favorite theme last night, when, as the twilight was deep- Happily the conversation at this ening, she sate with me and Lamia ou point was arrested by the subject of it the fixed rude seat that girds the bole joining us. But Lamia was not disof my primeval oak, for Lamia inad-posed to allow it to be diverted altovertently let fall the observation that gether into another channel. "We were saying that poets have fewer readers now than formerly.". "I did not say so," observed Ve the Poet's writings seem to be compar- "Yet, if you did," replied the Poet, "If his works are comparatively little "I almost think you would have been known as yet," said Veronica, "and right. Poetry is the delight, as it is every day they are acquiring a wider the expression, either of very simple or circle of readers" - what a character- of very elevated natures. The present istic touch was that!"it is because age has several marks of distinction; he owes nothing of what reputation he | but it is not simple, and it is not lofty. has acquired to factitious circumstance. It is practical and pedestrian, caring Born neither in a lofty nor in a humble for astronomy only as an auxiliary to position of life, he does not interest the navigation, and for chemistry only as it world by the lustre of his descent or promotes light, heat, or locomotion. by the romance of his self-achieved It has no disinterested interest in anyelevation. There is nothing peculiar thing. It is exceedingly enquiring, but either in his antecedents or in his ca- it asks for demonstration, and poetry reer. He has written nothing sensational, and done nothing sensational. He does not excite wonder by being rich or compassion by being poor. He has no patrons and no clients. In all the external conditions of his life he is wise? a very ordinary person. His hair is no longer than that of his neighbors, he is scrupulously well-dressed, he lives with his mother, whom he adores, earns his bread by inspecting elementary schools, and pays his debts with prosaic punctuality." "It does not sound poetical," observed Lamia. "Precisely. Your view is the view of the public at large. I know, dear Lamia, what you would like him to be and do. You would like him to have been born either in a palace or in a garret, to dress in picturesque velveteen rather faded, to have an eye in a fine frenzy rolling, to look on evening dress as the mark of a Philistine, to run away demonstrates nothing. Neither has it any literary interest in literature; and books, no matter of what calibre, and literature, are to it one and the same thing. But why should it be other And has it often been otherwise? Fit audience, though few, was good enough for Milton; and the poet who wants more is surely very presumptuous and very unreasonable. Indeed, why should he have an audience at all now that he no longer wanders from manor-house to manor-house reciting his verses? Surely, reading verse to oneself soon palls." "Don't talk nonsense," said Veronica. "Don't talk sense, I was going to say," said Lamia. Suppose you do neither," I ventured to observe, "but recite, instead, some of your own verses to this particular audience, at this particular manorhouse." |