“My dear nephew!” says he, striding toward me with eager steps, as you perhaps remember, smiling his eternally dry, leathery smile,—­“Nephew Frederick!”—­and he held out both hands to me, book in one and bag in t’other,—­“I am rejoiced!  One would almost think you had tried to hide away from your old uncle! for I’ve been three days hunting you up.  And how is Dolly? she ought to be glad to see me, after all the trouble I’ve had in finding you!  And, Nephew Frederick!—­h’m!—­can you lend me three dollars for the hackman? for I don’t happen to have—­thank you!  I should have been saved this if you had only known I was stopping last night at a public house in the next village, for I know how delighted you would have been to drive over and fetch me!”

If you were not already out of hearing, you may have noticed that I made no reply to this affecting speech.  The old gentleman has grown quite deaf of late years,—­an infirmity which was once a source of untold misery to his friends, to whom he was constantly appealing for their opinions, which they were obliged to shout in his ear.  But now, happily, the world has about ceased responding to him, and he has almost ceased to expect responses from the world.  He just catches your eye, and, when he says, “Don’t you think so, sir?” or, “What is your opinion, sir?” an approving nod does your business.

The hackman paid, my dear uncle accompanied me to the house, unfolding the catalogue of his woes by the way.  For he is one of those worthy, unoffending persons, whom an ungrateful world jostles and tramples upon,—­whom unmerciful disaster follows fast and follows faster.  In his younger days, he was settled over I don’t know how many different parishes; but secret enmity pursued him everywhere, poisoning the parochial mind against him, and driving him relentlessly from place to place.  Then he relapsed into agencies, and went through a long list of them, each terminating in flat failure, to his ever-recurring surprise,—­the simple old soul never suspecting, to this day, who his one great, tireless, terrible enemy is!

I got him into the library, and went to talk over this unexpected visit—­or visitation—­with Dolly.  She bore up under it more cheerfully than could have been expected,—­suppressed a sigh,—­and said she would go down and meet him.  She received him with a hospitable smile (I verily believe that more of the world’s hypocrisy proceeds from too much good-nature than from too little), and listened patiently to his explanations.

“You will observe that I have brought my bag,” says he, “for I knew you wouldn’t let me off for a day or two,—­though I must positively leave in a week,—­in two weeks, at the latest.  I have brought my volume, too, for I am contemplating a new edition” (he is always contemplating a new edition, making that a pretext for lugging the book about with him), “and I wish to enjoy the advantages of your and Frederick’s criticism;—­I anticipate some good, comfortable, old-time talks over the old book, Frederick!”