"My cousin might make a drive, I think," said Miss Pole, who was
afraid of ear-ache, and had only her cap on.

"I think it is very pretty," said Miss Matty, with a soft
plaintiveness in her voice, and almost in a whisper, for just then
Mr Holbrook appeared at the door, rubbing his hands in very
effervescence of hospitality. He looked more like my idea of Don
Quixote than ever, and yet the likeness was only external. His
respectable housekeeper stood modestly at the door to bid us
welcome; and, while she led the elder ladies upstairs to a bedroom,
I begged to look about the garden. My request evidently pleased
the old gentleman, who took me all round the place and showed me
his six-and-twenty cows, named after the different letters of the
alphabet. As we went along, he surprised me occasionally by
repeating apt and beautiful quotations from the poets, ranging
easily from Shakespeare and George Herbert to those of our own day.
He did this as naturally as if he were thinking aloud, and their
true and beautiful words were the best expression he could find for
what he was thinking or feeling. To be sure he called Byron "my
Lord Byrron," and pronounced the name of Goethe strictly in
accordance with the English sound of the letters--"As Goethe says,
'Ye ever-verdant palaces,'" &c. Altogether, I never met with a
man, before or since, who had spent so long a life in a secluded
and not impressive country, with ever-increasing delight in the
daily and yearly change of season and beauty.

When he and I went in, we found that dinner was nearly ready in the
kitchen--for so I suppose the room ought to be called, as there
were oak dressers and cupboards all round, all over by the side of