He said little more, but from what followed, I suspect either he or his father spoke to Sir Giles on the subject; for, one day, as I was walking past the park-gates, which I had seldom entered since my return, I saw him just within, talking to old Mr Coningham. I saluted him in passing, and he not only returned the salutation in a friendly manner, but made a step towards me as if he wished to speak to me. I turned and approached him. He came out and shook hands with me. ‘I know who you are, Mr Cumbermede, although I have never had the pleasure of speaking to you before,’ he said frankly. ‘There you are mistaken, Sir Giles,’ I returned; ‘but you could hardly be expected to remember the little boy who, many years ago, having stolen one of your apples, came to you to comfort him.’ He laughed heartily. ‘I remember the circumstance well,’ he said. ‘And you were that unhappy culprit? Ha! ha! ha! To tell the truth, I have thought of it many times. It was a remarkably fine thing to do.’ ‘What! steal the apple, Sir Giles?’ ‘Make the instant reparation you did.’ ‘There was no reparation in asking you to box my ears.’ ‘It was all you could do, though.’ ‘To ease my own conscience, it was. There is always a satisfaction, I suppose, in suffering for your sins. But I have thought a thousand times of your kindness in shaking hands with me instead. You treated me as the angels treat the repentant sinner, Sir Giles.’ ‘Well, I certainly never thought of it in that light,’ he said; then, as if wishing to change the subject,--‘Don’t you find it lonely now your uncle is gone?’ he said. ‘I miss him more than I can tell.’ ‘A very worthy man he was--too good for this world, by all accounts.’ ‘He’s not the worse off for that now, Sir Giles, I trust.’ ‘No; of course not,’ he returned quickly, with the usual shrinking from the slightest allusion to what is called the other world.--‘Is there anything I can do for you? You are a literary man, they tell me. There are a good many books of one sort and another lying at the Hall. Some of them might be of use to you. They are at your service. I am sure you are to be trusted even with mouldy books, which, from what I hear, must be a greater temptation to you now than red-cheeked apples,’ he added with another merry laugh. ‘I will tell you what,’ Sir Giles, I answered. ‘It has often grieved me to think of the state of your library. It would be scarcely possible for me to find a book in it now. But if you would trust me, I should be delighted, in my spare hours, of which I can command a good many, to put the whole in order for you.’ ‘I should be under the greatest obligation. I have always intended having some capable man down from London to arrange it. I am no great reader myself, but I have the highest respect for a good library. It ought never to have got into the condition in which I found it.’ ‘The books are fast going to ruin, I fear.’