Yet he heard the first gentle tap at the south window, and, looking over his spectacles at the little boy who stood outside, found time to bid him come in and wait for liberty to talk. The doctor went on writing, the smile still on his face, and Temmy,—in other words, Temple Temple, heir of Temple Lodge,—crept in at the window, and stole quietly about the room to amuse himself, till his grandfather should be at liberty to attend to him. While the pen scratched the paper, and ceased, and scratched again, Temmy walked along the bookshelves, and peeped into the cylinder of the great telescope, and cast a frightened look behind him on having the misfortune to jingle some glasses, and then slid into the low arm-chair to study for the hundredth time the prints that hung opposite,—the venerable portraits of his grandfather’s two most intimate friends. Temmy had learned to look on these wise men of another hemisphere with much of the same respect as on the philosophers of a former age. His grandfather appeared to him incalculably old, and unfathomably wise; and it was his grandfather’s own assurance that these two philosophers were older and wiser still. When to this was added the breadth of land and sea across which they dwelt, it was no wonder that, in the eyes of the boy, they had the sanctity of the long-buried dead. “Where is your grandmamma, Temmy?” asked Dr. Sneyd, at length, putting away his papers. “Do you know whether she is coming to take a walk with me?” “I cannot find her,” said the boy. “I went all round the garden, and through the orchard——” “And into the poultry yard?” “Yes; and every where else. All the doors are open, and the place quite empty. There is nobody at home here, nor in all the village, except at our house.” “All gone to the squirrel-hunt; or rather to meet the hunters, for the sport must be over by this time; but your grandmamma does not hunt squirrels. We must turn out and find her. I dare say she is gone to the Creek to look for the postman.” Temmy hoped that all the squirrels were not to be shot. Though there had been far too many lately, he should be sorry if they were all to disappear. “You will have your own two, in their pretty cage, at any rate, Temmy.” Temmy’s tearful eyes, twisted fingers, and scarlet colour, said the “no” he could not speak at the moment. Grandpapa liked to get at the bottom of every thing; and he soon discovered that the boy’s father had, for some reason unknown, ordered that no more squirrels should be seen in his house, and that the necks of Temmy’s favourites should be wrung. Temmy had no other favourites instead. He did not like to begin with any new ones without knowing whether he might keep them; and he had not yet asked his papa what he might be permitted to have. “We must all have patience, Temmy, about our favourites. I have had a great disappointment about one of mine.”