And the little woman, flinging out her lean arms, seizes portly Mr. Bonnington’s fat hand: as he and kind Mrs. Bonnington enter at the open casement. The little woman seems inclined to do the honours of the house. “And won’t you go upstairs, and put on your cap? Dear me, what a lovely ribbon! How blue does become Mrs. Bonnington! I always say so to Elizabeth,” she cries, peeping into a little packet which Mrs. Bonnington bears in her hand. After exchanging friendly words and greetings with me, that lady retires to put the lovely cap on, followed by her little jackal of an aide-de-camp. The portly clergyman surveys his pleased person in the spacious mirror. “Your things are in your old room--like to go in, and brush up a bit?” whispers Bedford to me. I am obliged to go, you see, though, for my part, I had thought, until Bedford spoke, that the ride on the top of the Putney omnibus had left me without any need of brushing; having aired my clothes, and given my young cheek a fresh and agreeable bloom. My old room, as Bedford calls it, was that snug apartment communicating by double doors with the drawing-room, and whence you can walk on to the lawn out of the windows. “Here’s your books, here’s your writing-paper,” says Bedford, leading the way into the chamber. “Does sore eyes good to see _you_ down here again, sir. You may smoke now. Clarence Baker smokes when he comes. Go and get some of that wine you like for dinner.” And the good fellow’s eyes beam kindness upon me as he nods his head, and departs to superintend the duties of his table. Of course you understand that this Bedford was my young printer’s boy of former days. What a queer fellow! I had not only been kind to him, but he was grateful. An Essay without End. To some reader, perhaps, an essay without end may appear odd, and opposed to the regular order of things; but if he will kindly imagine the line written on his gravestone--and it is an epitaph which my own ghost would regard with particular satisfaction--he will at once see that it is by no means singular. And whatever propriety there may be in its application to human life, extends to any process of thought; for thought, like life, is essential, without beginning and without end. It is this which makes abstract reflection so unsatisfying. An abstract thought is a sort of disembodied spirit; and when matched with its kind, the result is generally a progeny of ghosts and chimeras--numerous, but incapable. In fact, we do not often get so much as that out of it. Abstract thought generally travels backward. Childless itself, it goes upon its own pedigree; and as that becomes mysterious in proportion as it is remote, we soon find ourselves in a company of shadows, too vast to contemplate and too subtle for apprehension.