work hastily down, and went after him. In a minute or two she
returned, and sate down again. Not long after, and before I had
quite recovered my good temper, he opened the door out of which
he had passed, and called to me to come to him. I went across a
narrow stone passage into a strange, many-cornered room, not ten
feet in area, part study, part counting house, looking into the
farm-yard; with a desk to sit at, a desk to stand at, a Spittoon,
a set of shelves with old divinity books upon them; another,
smaller, filled with books on farriery, farming, manures, and
such subjects, with pieces of paper containing memoranda stuck
against the whitewashed walls with wafers, nails, pins, anything
that came readiest to hand; a box of carpenter's tools on the
floor, and some manuscripts in short-hand on the desk.

He turned round, half laughing. 'That foolish girl of mine thinks
I have vexed you'--putting his large, powerful hand on my
shoulder. '"Nay," says I, "kindly meant is kidney taken"--is it
not so?'

'It was not quite, sir,' replied I, vanquished by his manner;
'but it shall be in future.'

'Come, that's right. You and I shall be friends. Indeed, it's not
many a one I would bring in here. But I was reading a book this
morning, and I could not make it out; it is a book that was left
here by mistake one day; I had subscribed to Brother Robinson's
sermons; and I was glad to see this instead of them, for sermons
though they be, they're . . . well, never mind! I took 'em both,
and made my old coat do a bit longer; but all's fish that comes
to my net. I have fewer books than leisure to read them, and I