We talked of plans for the coming week. I told over our few objects of modest interest, and the names of such of our neighbors as could lay claim to the honor of a visit from Dr. Borrow, or could in any degree appreciate his society. The nearest of these was Westlake. "We have been at Westlake's," said the Doctor; "we passed a day and night with him. He pressed us to stay longer, and I was very well amused there; but Harry looked so plainly his eagerness to be on, and his fear lest I should allow myself to be persuaded, that I put your hospitable neighbor off with a promise to give him another day, if we had time, after we had been here. Harry has all along wanted to secure the visit here as soon as possible, for fear something or other should interfere with it. I believe, if I had proposed it, he would even have put off going to the Harveys, old friends as they are. You must know that you have been his load-star from the first." Very much pleased, yet surprised, I looked at Harry. His color deepened a little as he answered, "I have heard Selden speak of you; but it was after we met Mr. Shaler that I had so great a desire to know you." Here the Doctor took up the word again:-- "We met Shaler in a great forlorn tavern at Mantonville, quite by chance. We hadn't been in the house half an hour before Harry and he found each other out. I had just had time to give some orders up-stairs for making my room a little habitable,--for we were going to pass a day or two there,--and came down to look about me below. There I find Harry walking up and down the breezy entry with a stately stranger, engaged in earnest and intimate conversation. Presently he comes to ask me if it would be agreeable to me to have our seats at the table taken near Mr. Charles Shaler's, who, it seemed, was by two days more at home than we were. Of course it was agreeable to me in that populous No Man's Land to sit near any one who had a name to be called by. And the name was not a new one. I had never seen Charles Shaler,--Colonel Shaler, as he is called,--of Metapora; but I had heard a great deal of him, for he is own cousin to the Harveys. I felt sure that this was the man. His appearance agreed perfectly with the description given me, and then Harry's foregathering with him so instinctively was a proof in itself. I found him very agreeable that day at dinner, though, and continued to find him so, except when he mounted his hobby; then he was insupportable. There's no arguing with enthusiasts. They are lifted up into a sphere entirely above that of reason. And when they have persuaded themselves that the matter they have run wild upon is a religious one, they're wrapped in such a panoply of self-righteousness that there's no hitting them anywhere. You may _demonstrate_ to such a man as Shaler the absurdity, the impracticability, of his schemes: he seems to think he's done his part in laying them before you; he doesn't even show you the attention