He smiled what I took for a self-satisfied smile. There was nothing offensive in it, but it left me without anything to reply to. No embarrassment followed, however, for a rustling motion in the room the same instant attracted my attention, and I saw, to my surprise, and I must confess, a little to my confusion, Miss Oldcastle. She was seated in a corner, reading from a quarto lying upon her knees. “Oh! you didn’t know my niece was here? To tell the truth, I forgot her when I brought you up, else I would have introduced you.” “That is not necessary, uncle,” said Miss Oldcastle, closing her book. I was by her instantly. She slipped the quarto from her knee, and took my offered hand. “Are you fond of old books?” I said, not having anything better to say. “Some old books,” she answered. “May I ask what book you were reading?” “I will answer you—under protest,” she said, with a smile. “I withdraw the question at once,” I returned. “I will answer it notwithstanding. It is a volume of Jacob Behmen.” “Do you understand him?” “Yes. Don’t you?” “Well, I have made but little attempt,” I answered. “Indeed, it was only as I passed through London last that I bought his works; and I am sorry to find that one of the plates is missing from my copy.” “Which plate is it? It is not very easy, I understand, to procure a perfect copy. One of my uncle’s copies has no two volumes bound alike. Each must have belonged to a different set.” “I can’t tell you what the plate is. But there are only three of those very curious unfolding ones in my third volume, and there should be four.” “I do not think so. Indeed, I am sure you are wrong.” “I am glad to hear it—though to be glad that the world does not possess what I thought I only was deprived of, is selfishness, cover it over as one may with the fiction of a perfect copy.” “I don’t know,” she returned, without any response to what I said. “I should always like things perfect myself.” “Doubtless,” I answered; and thought it better to try another direction. “How is Mrs Oldcastle?” I asked, feeling in its turn the reproach of hypocrisy; for though I could have suffered, I hope, in my person and goods and reputation, to make that woman other than she was, I could not say that I cared one atom whether she was in health or not. Possibly I should have preferred the latter member of the alternative; for the suffering of the lower nature is as a fire that drives the higher nature upwards. So I felt rather hypocritical when I asked Miss Oldcastle after her. “Quite well, thank you,” she answered, in a tone of indifference, which implied either that she saw through me, or shared in my indifference. I could not tell which. “And how is Miss Judy?” I inquired. “A little savage, as usual.” “Not the worse for her wetting, I hope.” “Oh! dear no. There never was health to equal that child’s. It belongs to her savage nature.”