So there sits Leonard the Self-taught in the little cottage alone; for though scarcely past the hour in which great folks dine, it is the hour in which small folks go to bed, and Mrs. Fairfield has retired to rest, while Leonard has settled to his books. He had placed his table under the lattice, and from time to time he looked up and enjoyed the stillness of the moon. Well for him that, in reparation for those hours stolen from night, the hardy physical labor commenced with dawn. Students would not be the sad dyspeptics they are if they worked as many hours in the open air as my scholar-peasant. But even in him you could see that the mind had begun a little to affect the frame. They who task the intellect must pay the penalty with the body. Ill, believe me, would this work-day world get on if all within it were hard-reading, studious animals, playing the deuce with the ganglionic apparatus. Leonard started as he heard the knock at the door; the Parson's well-known voice reassured him. In some surprise he admitted his visitors. "We are come to talk to you, Leonard," said Mr. Dale, "but I fear we shall disturb Mrs. Fairfield." "Oh no, sir! the door to the staircase is shut, and she sleeps soundly." "Why, this is a French book--do you read French, Leonard?" asked Riccabocca. "I have not found French difficult, sir. Once over the grammar, and the language is so clear; it seems the very language for reasoning." "True. Voltaire said justly, 'Whatever is obscure is not French,'" observed Riccabocca. "I wish I could say the same of English," muttered the Parson. "But what is this?--Latin too?--Virgil?" "Yes, sir. But I find I make little way there without a master. I fear I must give it up," (and Leonard sighed.)