So Mr Budge engaged the rooms, and speedily arrived to take possession, bringing with him a spick-and-span new fishing-rod and basket. He did not know much about fishing, but he enjoyed himself just as thoroughly as if he did; and he laughed so good-humouredly at his own Cockney blunders, as he called them, that Thomas would have been quite angry had any one else presumed to indulge a smile at Mr Budge's expense. A pattern lodger in all respects was Mr Budge--deferential towards Martha and myself, and from the first moment he beheld Miss Marion, regarding her as a superior being, yet one to be loved by a mortal for all that. Mr Budge was not a particularly communicative individual himself, though we opined from various observations, that, although not rich, he was comfortably off: but somehow or other, without appearing in the least inquisitive, he managed to obtain the minutest information he required. In this way, he learned all the particulars respecting Miss Marion; and gathered also from me, my own desire of obtaining a situation, such as I had held at Mr Dacre's, but in a small and well-regulated household. As to Miss Marion, the kind old gentleman could never shew kindness enough to her; and he watched the returning roses on her fair cheeks with a solicitude scarcely exceeded by mine. I never wondered at anybody admiring and loving the sweet, patient girl; but Mr Budge's admiration and apparent affection so far exceeded the bounds of mere conventional kindness in a stranger, that sometimes I even smilingly conjectured he had the idea of asking her to become Mrs Budge, for he was a widower, as he told us, and childless. Such an idea, however, had never entered Miss Marion's innocent heart; and she, always so grateful for any little attention, was not likely to receive with coldness those so cordially lavished on her by her new friend, whom she valued as a truly good man, and not for a polished exterior, in which Mr Budge was deficient. Nay, so cordial was their intimacy, and so much had Miss Marion regained health and cheerfulness, that with unwonted sportiveness, on more than one occasion she actually hid the ponderous brown snuff-box, usually reposing in Mr Budge's capacious pocket, and only produced it when his distress became real; whereupon he chuckled and laughed, as if she had performed a mighty clever feat, indulging at the same time, however, in a double pinch.