Stimulated by jealousy, and prompted by a desire to satisfy myself of Ellen's truth, I resolved to visit a college friend who lived in the immediate vicinity of her father's residence, and there patiently wait until I might have an opportunity of seeing her. My uncle was my confidant; and when I entered his room for the purpose of disclosing my intentions, I found him seated as usual amid a crowd of antique volumes, while his eyes were keenly gloating over the original-brained tittle-tattle of "Howel's Letters." His large centre table displayed a motley mixture of the stable, chase, and library. On a copy of the _Divine Legation_ lay a {162} curb-bit. The _Castle of Indolence_ was crowded into an old-fashioned stirrup. A dog collar belonging to one of King Charles' breed, surmounted _Clarendon_. Two broken throat-lashes were placed on _State Trials_, and a pair of spurs had worked their rowels deep into the binding of _Stith's History of Virginia_. The _Defence of Poesy_, _Rhymer's Foedera_, _Fuller's Holy State_, _Catullus_, and _Tom Jones_, were tied together with a bridle rein; while a full record (_tested_ by the clerk of the council, and dated July 9th, 1630,) of the trial of Doctor John Pott, late Governor of Virginia, for cattle stealing, spread its broad pages over the whole table. I caught a glimpse of a long and copious commentary which my uncle had written at the foot of it, in which he had proved the innocence of the Ex-Governor, and the perjury of Kingsmell, the principal witness, whom as the record narrates, "Doctor Pott endeavored to prove an hypocrite by a story of Gusman of Alfrach the rogue." I soon declared the purpose of my visit, and that I was determined to see Ellen Pilton.