"Ho! It's you!" cries the old gentleman. "How de do? How de do?" "Middling," replies Mr. George, taking a chair. "Your grand-daughter I have had the honor of seeing before; my service to you, miss." "This is my grandson," says Grandfather Smallweed. "You han't seen him before. He is in the law, and not much at home." "My service to him, too! He is like his sister. He is very like his sister. He is devilish like his sister," says Mr. George, laying a great and not altogether complimentary stress on his last adjective. "And how does the world use you, Mr. George?" Grandfather Smallweed inquires, slowly rubbing his legs. "Pretty much as usual. Like a football." He is a swarthy browned man of fifty; stoutly built, and good-looking; with crisp dark hair, bright eyes, and a broad chest. His sinewy and powerful hands, as sunburnt as his face, have evidently been used to a pretty rough life. What is curious about him is, that he sits forward on his chair as if he were, from long habit, allowing space for some dress or accoutrements that he has altogether laid aside. His step, too, is measured and heavy, and would go well with a weighty clash and jingle of spurs. He is close-shaved now, but his mouth is set as if his upper lip had been for years familiar with a great mustache; and his manner of occasionally laying the open palm of his broad brown hand upon it, is to the same effect. Altogether, one might guess Mr. George to have been a trooper once upon a time. A special contrast Mr. George makes to the Smallweed family. Trooper was never yet billeted upon a household more unlike him. It is a broad-sword to an oyster-knife. His developed figure, and their stunted forms; his large manner filling any amount of room, and their little narrow pinched ways; his sounding voice, and their sharp spare tones, are in the strongest and the strangest opposition. As he sits in the middle of the grim parlor, leaning a little forward, with his hands upon his thighs, and his elbows squared, he looks as though, if he remained there long, he would absorb into himself the whole family and the whole four-roomed house, extra little back-kitchen and all. "Do you rub your legs to rub life into 'em?" he asks of Grandfather Smallweed, after looking round the room. "Why, it's partly a habit, Mr. George, and--yes--it partly helps the circulation," he replies. "The cir-cu-la-tion!" repeats Mr. George, folding his arms upon his chest, and seeming to become two sizes larger. "Not much of that, I should think." "Truly, I'm old, Mr. George," says Grandfather Smallweed. "But I can carry my years. I'm older than _her_," nodding at his wife, "and see what she is!--You're a brimstone chatterer!" with a sudden revival of his late hostility.