It must not be omitted, that there was a fragrance in the room, which, unlike as the scene was, brought back, through so many years, to Redclyffe’s mind a most vivid remembrance of poor old Doctor Grim’s squalid chamber, with his wild, bearded presence in the midst of it, puffing his everlasting cloud; for here was the same smell of tobacco, and on the mantel-piece of a chimney lay a German pipe, and an old silver tobacco-box into which was wrought the leopard’s head and the inscription in black letter. The Warden had evidently availed himself of one of the chief bachelor sources of comfort. Redclyffe, whose destiny had hitherto, and up to a very recent period, been to pass a feverishly active life, was greatly impressed by all these tokens of learned ease,--a degree of self-indulgence combined with duties enough to quiet an otherwise uneasy conscience,--by the consideration that this pensioner acted a good part in a world where no one is entitled to be an unprofitable laborer. He thought within himself, that his prospects in his own galvanized country, that seemed to him, a few years since, to offer such a career for an adventurous young man, conscious of motive power, had nothing so enticing as such a nook as this,--a quiet recess of unchangeable old time, around which the turbulent tide now eddied and rushed, but could not disturb it. Here, to be sure, hope, love, ambition, came not, progress came not; but here was what, just now, the early wearied American could appreciate better than aught else,--here was rest. The fantasy took Edward to imitate the useful labors of the learned Warden, and to make trial whether his own classical condition--the results of Doctor Grim’s tuition, and subsequently that of an American College--had utterly deserted him, by attempting a translation of a few verses of Yankee Doodle; and he was making hopeful progress when the Warden came in fresh and rosy from a morning’s ride in a keen east wind. He shook hands heartily with his guest, and, though by no means frigid at their former interview, seemed to have developed at once into a kindlier man, now that he had suffered the stranger to cross his threshold, and had thus made himself responsible for his comfort. “I shall take it greatly amiss,” said he, “if you do not pick up fast under my roof, and gather a little English ruddiness, moreover, in the walks and rides that I mean to take you. Your countrymen, as I saw them, are a sallow set; but I think you must have English blood enough in your veins to eke out a ruddy tint, with the help of good English beef and ale, and daily draughts of wholesome light and air.” “My cheeks would not have been so very pale,” said Edward, laughing, “if an English shot had not deprived me of a good deal of my American blood.”