very few words. I learnt that he was the last male representative of an old family, who had long held the small estate here; that after a distinguished Oxford career, he had met with a serious accident that had made him a permanent invalid. That he had settled down here, not expecting to live more than a few years, and that he was now over seventy; it had been the quietest of lives, she said, and a very happy one, too, in spite of his disabilities. He read a great deal, and interested himself in local affairs, but sometimes for weeks together could do nothing. I gathered that she was his only surviving relation, and had lived with him from her childhood. "You will think," she added, laughing, "that he is the kind of person who is shown by his friends as a wonderful old man, and who turns out to be a person like the patriarch Casby, in Little Dorrit, whose sanctity, like Samson's, depended entirely upon the length of his hair. But he is not in the least like that, and I will leave you to find out for yourself whether he is wonderful or not." There was a touch of masculine irony and humour about this that took my fancy; and we went to the house, Miss ---- saying that two new persons in one afternoon would be rather a strain for her uncle, much as he would enjoy it, and that his enjoyment must be severely limited. "His illness," she said, "is an obscure one; it is a want of adequate nervous force: the doctors give it names, but don't seem to be able to cure or relieve it; he is strong, physically and mentally, but the least over-exertion or over-strain knocks him up; it is as if virtue went out of him; though a partial niece may say that he has a plentiful stock of the material." We went in, and proceeded to a small library, full of books, with a big writing-table in the window. The room was somewhat dark, and the feet fell softly on a thick carpet. There was no sort of luxury about the room; a single portrait hung over the mantelpiece, and there was no trace of ornament anywhere, except a big bowl of roses on a table.