“It’s a good place for fever patients,” said Dr. Jane in a tone of authority. “There’s health in the air of the house.” “Yes, I should apprehend as much,” asserted Uncle Doctor Theophilus. “You mean the intellectual atmosphere, of course,” said Julian, as a whiff of the sauerkraut Lena did love came around the house. “Oh yes, we are remote, but we have had great company here. Emerson has uttered wisdom from your chair, Uncle Doctor, and near him sat Hawthorne, and against that tree leaned Thoreau. We have even had what some fantastic literary fellow calls the tone poets all around us, and no end of painters and sketchers.” “It’s nothing but a play of ours,” I explained. “Whenever I wished we had such people for visitors, Julian piled chairs full of their books, or their music, or stood up copies of their pictures. Then we talked to them, and Julian read from them in reply, or I ran over the musical score, or he hung a picture where it could speak for itself. In that way he thinks we enjoyed just as close communion with them as their nearest friends ever had; because their elusive souls would speak to us more directly and coherently than if they were sitting opposite us in the flesh.” The Old Daguerreotype shook his head indulgently over such pastime. On deliberation, however, he said the next time we had such a gathering he would like to join it. After supper, and while Uncle Doctor Theophilus and Julian were trailing their feet through the grass, carrying their hands behind them, and all but chewing the bovine cud in their ruminative gazing on the bee-hives, the orchard, the stable, and meadow, Jennie put on her hat and gloves to drive our relative back to the Avenue station. I knew the drive would be good for her. “You can come home the long way, through the creek--the water is always low--after you have left him at his train,” I hinted. “I guess I shall go the long way,” said Jennie. “It will be pleasanter having someone to talk with.” T’férgore and I exchanged a long stare; that is, I exchanged a long stare with T’férgore for a series of self-absorbed blinks. “I am so glad,” I then remarked to Jennie, “that you aren’t put out by the old Dag--Doctor; when I say old, I mean, of course, reverend; for he isn’t really elderly, you know.” “He doesn’t put me out a bit,” answered Jennie. “He is very quieting to me. I believe he is a sound man.” “There is no man sounder,” I declared. “And he was just as good as he could be to his wife. I think she actually died because there was nothing more she could ask of life. I never saw such a self-satisfied expression as she had--outside of a miniature. His position is excellent and influential, too. A woman can’t help looking at that sort of thing when she is once married.” Jennie turned about to face me, smiling. “Now, don’t, my dear, don’t,” she objected. “Let us not give our talk any such bias.”