always spoke of us as a very ancient family. But all my father ever said, to evince pride of ancestry, was in honour of William Caxton, citizen and printer in the reign of Edward IV.--"Clarum et venerabile nomen!" an ancestor a man of letters might be justly vain of. "Heus," said my father, stopping short, and lifting his eyes from the Colloquies of Erasmus, "salve multum, jucundissime." Uncle Jack was not much of a scholar, but he knew enough Latin to answer, "Salve tantundem, mi frater." My father smiled approvingly. "I see you comprehend true urbanity, or politeness, as we phrase it. There is an elegance in addressing the husband of your sister as brother. Erasmus commends it in his opening chapter, under the head of 'Salutandi formulæ.' And indeed," added my father thoughtfully, "there is no great difference between politeness and affection. My author here observes that it is polite to express salutation in certain minor distresses of nature. One should salute a gentleman in yawning, salute him in hiccuping, salute him in sneezing, salute him in coughing;--and that evidently because of your interest in his health; for he may dislocate his jaw in yawning, and the hiccup is often a symptom of grave disorder, and sneezing is perilous to the small blood-vessels of the head, and coughing is either a tracheal, bronchial, pulmonary, or ganglionic affection." "Very true. The Turks always salute in sneezing, and they are a remarkably polite people," said Uncle Jack. "But, my dear brother, I was just looking with admiration at these apple-trees of yours. I never saw finer. I am a great judge of apples. I find, in talking with my sister, that you make very little profit of them. That's a pity. One might establish a cider orchard in this county. You can take your own fields in hand; you can hire more, so as to make the whole, say a hundred acres. You can plant a very extensive apple-orchard on a grand scale. I have just run through the calculations; they are quite startling. Take 40 trees per acre--that's the proper average--at 1s. 6d. per tree; 4000 trees for 100 acres £300;, labour of digging, trenching, say £10 an acre--total for 100 acres, £1000. Pave the bottoms of the holes, to prevent the tap-root striking down into the bad soil--oh, I am very close and careful, you see, in all minutiæ,!--always was--pave 'em with rubbish and stones, 6d. a hole; that, for 4000 trees the 100 acres is £100. Add the rent of the land, at 30s. an acre, £150. And how stands the total?" Here Uncle Jack proceeded rapidly ticking off the items with his fingers:-- "Trees, £300 Labour, 1,000 Paving holes, 100 Rent, 150 ------ Total, £1,550