and his shirts, prepared to stay a week--that is to say a year--that is
to say forever, if we would suffer him,--and how was he to be hindered
by any desperate measures short of burning the house down!

"My dear nephew!" says he, striding toward me with eager steps, as you
perhaps remember, smiling his eternally dry, leathery smile,--"Nephew
Frederick!"--and he held out both hands to me, book in one and bag in
t'other,--"I am rejoiced! One would almost think you had tried to hide
away from your old uncle! for I've been three days hunting you up. And
how is Dolly? she ought to be glad to see me, after all the trouble I've
had in finding you! And, Nephew Frederick!--h'm!--can you lend me three
dollars for the hackman? for I don't happen to have--thank you! I should
have been saved this if you had only known I was stopping last night at
a public house in the next village, for I know how delighted you would
have been to drive over and fetch me!"

If you were not already out of hearing, you may have noticed that I made
no reply to this affecting speech. The old gentleman has grown quite
deaf of late years,--an infirmity which was once a source of untold
misery to his friends, to whom he was constantly appealing for their
opinions, which they were obliged to shout in his ear. But now, happily,
the world has about ceased responding to him, and he has almost ceased
to expect responses from the world. He just catches your eye, and, when
he says, "Don't you think so, sir?" or, "What is your opinion, sir?" an
approving nod does your business.

The hackman paid, my dear uncle accompanied me to the house, unfolding
the catalogue of his woes by the way. For he is one of those worthy,
unoffending persons, whom an ungrateful world jostles and tramples
upon,--whom unmerciful disaster follows fast and follows faster. In his