"Oh, no, Miss, the other is the waiter of the poet; that we know, as he serves him at dinner, and otherwise superintends his concerns; such as brushing his clothes, and keeping his room in order." "This is being in luck for a poet, for they are of a class that are a little apt to neglect the decencies. May I ask why you suspect the master of being a poet, if the man be so assiduous?" "Why, what else can he be? In the first place, Miss Effingham, he has no name." "That is a reason in point," said John Effingham "very few poets having names." "Then he is out on the lake half his time, gazing up at the 'Silent Pine,' or conversing with the 'Speaking Rocks,' or drinking at the 'Fairy Spring.'" "All suspicious, certainly; especially the dialogue with the rocks; though not absolutely conclusive." "But, Mr. John Effingham, the man does not take his food like other people. He rises early, and is out on the water, or up in the forest, all the morning, and then returns to eat his breakfast in the middle of the forenoon; he goes into the woods again, or on the lake, and comes back to dinner, just as I take my tea." "This settles the matter. Any man who presumes to do all this, Mr. Bragg, deserves to be called by some harder name, even, than that of a poet. Pray, sir, how long has this eccentric person been a resident of Templeton?" "Hist--there he is, as I am a sinner; and it was not he and the other gentlemen that were in the boat." The rebuked manner of Aristabulus, and the dropping of his voice, induced the whole party to look in the direction of his eye, and, sure enough, a gentleman approached them, in the dress a man of the world is apt to assume in the country, an attire of itself that was sufficient to attract comment in a place where the general desire was to be as much like town as possible, though it was sufficiently neat and simple. He came from the forest, along the table-land that crowned the mountain for some distance, following one of the foot- paths that the admirers of the beautiful landscape have made all over that pleasant wood. As he came out into the cleared spot, seeing it already in possession of a party, he bowed, and was passing on, with a delicacy that Mr. Bragg would be apt to deem eccentric, when suddenly stopping, he gave a look of intense and eager interest at the whole party, smiled, advanced rapidly nearer, and discovered his entire person. "I ought not to be surprised," he said, as he advanced so near as to render doubt any longer impossible, "for I knew you were expected, and indeed waited for your arrival, and yet this meeting has been so unexpected as to leave me scarcely in possession of my faculties."