It was now Worthington's turn to exhibit interest, for in boyhood he had been next door neighbor to Cooper; and he asked if his Highness was acquainted with the writings of the novelist. The Khedive had read all of Cooper's books. Some of them he cared little for, but those he did care for he loved. _The Leather-Stocking Tales_ had opened a new world to him, and he was charmed. _The Deerslayer_ he "adored." The sublime and shadowy forests, the silent lakes high up in evergreen hills, the cool rivers--how they captivated his imagination! how they invited his soul! He would, he exclaimed, give a year of his life if he might view the Glimmerglass, if he might tread a forest trail. In his library the Khedive showed to his visitor, with evident satisfaction, his three magnificent sets of Cooper's works, in French, in German, and in English. John Worthington's later days were passed in Cooperstown, where he lived to be the village man of letters, delighting his contemporaries with contributions of picturesque prose and graceful verse that would have given him a wider renown had he written otherwise than, as it seemed, for the mere pleasure of writing for the entertainment of his friends. His twelve years of service at Malta, with many excursions in the ancient world, developed in him an oriental color of mind, and gave even to the Otsego of his childhood, when he returned hither to live, the dreamy glamour of the mystic East. At home he lived altogether among books, and in the companionship of poetic imagination passed the years of almost exile from Malta, his fondest retrospect. A winning soul was John Worthington, widely beloved for what he was, and mourned for all that he might have been.