Is the man going mad? thought I. He is very like Don Quixote.

"What colour are they, I say?" repeated he vehemently.

"I am sure I don't know, sir," said I, with the meekness of
ignorance.

"I knew you didn't. No more did I--an old fool that I am!--till
this young man comes and tells me. Black as ash-buds in March.
And I've lived all my life in the country; more shame for me not to
know. Black: they are jet-black, madam." And he went off again,
swinging along to the music of some rhyme he had got hold of.

When we came back, nothing would serve him but he must read us the
poems he had been speaking of; and Miss Pole encouraged him in his
proposal, I thought, because she wished me to hear his beautiful
reading, of which she had boasted; but she afterwards said it was
because she had got to a difficult part of her crochet, and wanted
to count her stitches without having to talk. Whatever he had
proposed would have been right to Miss Matty; although she did fall
sound asleep within five minutes after he had begun a long poem,
called "Locksley Hall," and had a comfortable nap, unobserved, till
he ended; when the cessation of his voice wakened her up, and she
said, feeling that something was expected, and that Miss Pole was
counting -

"What a pretty book!"

"Pretty, madam! it's beautiful! Pretty, indeed!"