The two gentlemen exchanged looks and seated themselves. The young peasant remained standing modestly, and in his air and mien there was something that touched the heart while it pleased the eye. He was no longer the timid boy who had sunk from the frown of Mr. Stirn, nor that rude personation of simple physical strength, roused to undisciplined bravery, which had received its downfall on the village-green of Hazeldean. The power of thought was on his brow--somewhat unquiet still, but mild and earnest. The features had attained that refinement which is often attributed to race, but comes, in truth, from elegance of idea, whether caught from our parents or learned from books. In his rich brown hair, thrown carelessly from his temples, and curling almost to the shoulders in his large blue eye, which was deepened to the hue of the violet by the long dark lash--in that firmness of lip which comes from the grapple with difficulties, there was considerable beauty, but no longer the beauty of the mere peasant. And yet there was still about the whole countenance that expression of goodness and purity which a painter would give to his ideal of the peasant lover--such as Tasso would have placed in the _Aminta_, or Fletcher have admitted to the side of the Faithful Shepherdess. "You must draw a chair here, and sit down between us, Leonard," said the Parson. "If any one," said Riccabocca "has a right to sit, it is the one who is to hear the sermon; and if any one ought to stand, it is the one who is about to preach it." "Don't be frightened, Leonard," said the Parson, graciously; "it is only a criticism, not a sermon," and he pulled out Leonard's Prize Essay. CHAPTER XIX. PARSON.--"You take for your motto this aphorism[8]--'_Knowledge is Power._--Bacon.'" RICCABOCCA.--"Bacon make such an aphorism! The last man in the world to have said any thing so pert and so shallow." LEONARD (astonished).--"Do you mean to say, sir, that that aphorism is not in Lord Bacon! Why, I have seen it quoted as his in almost every newspaper, and in almost every speech in favor of popular education." RICCABOCCA.--"Then that should be a warning to you never again to fall into the error of the would-be scholar--viz., quote second-hand. Lord Bacon wrote a great book to show in what knowledge is power, how that power should be defined, in what it might be mistaken. And, pray, do you think so sensible a man would ever have taken the trouble to write a great book upon the subject, if he could have packed up all he had to say into the portable dogma, 'Knowledge is power?' Pooh! no such aphorism is to be found in Bacon from the first page of his writings to the last." PARSON (candidly).--"Well, I supposed it was Lord Bacon's, and I am very glad to hear that the aphorism has not the sanction of his authority." LEONARD (recovering his surprise).--"But why so?" PARSON.--"Because it either says a great deal too much, or just--nothing at all."