impossible to converse with Mr. Talbot for five minutes without
merging every less respectful impression in the magical fascination of
his manner.

"I thank you, Mr. Linden," said Talbot, rising, "for your accepting so
readily an old man's invitation. If I have felt pleasure in
discovering that we were to be neighbours, you may judge what that
pleasure is to-day at finding you my visitor."

Clarence, who, to do him justice, was always ready at returning a fine
speech, replied in a similar strain, and the conversation flowed on
agreeably enough. There was more than a moderate collection of books
in the room, and this circumstance led Clarence to allude to literary
subjects; these Mr. Talbot took up with avidity, and touched with a
light but graceful criticism upon many of the then modern and some of
the older writers. He seemed delighted to find himself understood and
appreciated by Clarence, and every moment of Linden's visit served to
ripen their acquaintance into intimacy. At length they talked upon
Copperas Bower and its inmates.

"You will find your host and hostess," said the gentleman, "certainly
of a different order from the persons with whom it is easy to see you
have associated; but, at your happy age, a year or two may be very
well thrown away upon observing the manners and customs of those whom,
in later life, you may often be called upon to conciliate or perhaps
to control. That man will never be a perfect gentleman who lives only
with gentlemen. To be a man of the world, we must view that world in
every grade and in every perspective. In short, the most practical
art of wisdom is that which extracts from things the very quality they
least appear to possess; and the actor in the world, like the actor on