He moved along the hall to accost them; and as he appeared to expect that Redclyffe would still keep him company, and as the latter had no reason for not doing so, they both advanced to the pensioner, who was now leaning on the young woman’s arm. The incident, too, was not unacceptable to the American, as promising to bring him into a more available relation with her--whom he half fancied to be his old American acquaintance--than he had yet succeeded in obtaining. “Well, my old friend,” said Mountford, after bowing with a certain measured respect to the young woman, “how wears life with you? Rather, perhaps, it does not wear at all; you being so well suited to the life around you, you grow by it like a lichen on a wall. I could fancy now that you have walked here for three hundred years, and remember when King James of blessed memory was entertained in this hall, and could marshal out all the ceremonies just as they were then.” “An old man,” said the pensioner, quietly, “grows dreamy as he wanes away; and I, too, am sometimes at a loss to know whether I am living in the past or the present, or whereabouts in time I am,--or whether there is any time at all. But I should think it hardly worth while to call up one of my shifting dreams more than another.” “I confess,” said Redclyffe, “I shall find it impossible to call up this scene--any of these scenes--hereafter, without the venerable figure of this, whom I may truly call my benefactor, among them. I fancy him among them from the foundation,--young then, but keeping just the equal step with their age and decay,--and still doing good and hospitable deeds to those who need them.” The old man seemed not to like to hear these remarks and expressions of gratitude from Mountford and the American; at any rate, he moved away with his slow and light motion of infirmity, but then came uneasily back, displaying a certain quiet restlessness, which Redclyffe was sympathetic enough to perceive. Not so the sturdier, more heavily moulded Englishman, who continued to direct the conversation upon the pensioner, or at least to make him a part of it, thereby bringing out more of his strange characteristics. In truth, it is not quite easy for an Englishman to know how to adapt himself to the line feelings of those below him in point of station, whatever gentlemanly deference he may have for his equals or superiors. “I should like now, father pensioner,” said he, “to know how many steps you may have taken in life before your path led into this hole, and whence your course started.” “Do not let him speak thus to the old man,” said the young woman, in a low, earnest tone, to Redclyffe. He was surprised and startled; it seemed like a voice that has spoken to his boyhood. _Note 2. Author’s note_.--“Redclyffe’s place is next to that of the proprietor at table.” _Note 3. Author’s note_.--“Dwell upon the antique liveried servants somewhat.” _Note 4. Author’s note_.--“The rose-water must precede the toasts.”