“It is rather less than half a century ago,” he began, “since I first set foot in this beautiful Devon county. I came down on a short holiday from London, in the summer time, to fish, and I brought with me, besides my rod and basket, a portmanteau full of clothes and about twenty-five pounds in gold, which was the whole amount of my savings. I was junior clerk in a house at that day, with one hundred and twenty pounds a-year, and with as much chance of becoming a partner as you, my dear briefless Charles, have of sitting on the woolsack. From the top of Tremadyn House I could point you out the farm-house where I lodged, and will some day take you to see it,--a mighty homestead, with a huge portico of stone and flights of stone steps leading to the upper chambers from without. On one side was the farm-yard, filled with swine and poultry, with open stalls for cattle, and enormous barns, not so well kept or neat, perhaps, as the present day requires, but a perfect picture of plenty; on the other stood the cider-presses, and beyond, the apple orchards, white with promise, red with fruit, made the air faint with fragrance; half orchard was the garden, too, in fruit, through which, beneath a rustic bridge, my trout stream wandered. Charlotte, you know the place--have I not painted it?” “You have, Robert,” she said. The tears were in her eyes, ready to fall, I saw. “There, then, I met Katie. The good man of the house was childless, and she, his cousin, was well cared for as his child. It was no wonder, George: the dark oak parlour seemed to need no light when she shone in it. Like a sunbeam gliding over common places, whatever household matters busied her she graced. Some sweet art seemed to lie in her, superior to mere neatness, as high-heartedness excelleth pride. I put on salmon flies to catch trout. I often fished without any hook at all. I strove to image her fair face and form in the clear waters, by the side of that hapless similitude of myself--the reflex of a forlorn youth in his first love. I did my best at haymaking to please her. I took eternal lessons in the art of making Devon cheese. I got at last so far as to kiss her hand. I drew a little, and she sat to me for her portrait. We sallied out a mushrooming and getting wild flowers, and on our way sang pleasant songs together, and interchanged our little stores of reading. On the eve before my long put-off departure we were thus roaming: we had to cross a hundred stiles--the choicest blessings of this country I used to think them--and once, instead of offering my hand to help her over, I held out both my arms, and, upon my life, George, the dear girl jumped right into them; and that was how I got to kiss her cheek.” “What shocking stories you are telling, Robert,” said Mrs. Chetwood, and certainly she was then blushing up under her lace cap to her white hair.