The old gentleman had a learned passion for folios.  He had been a long time urging Meriwether to make some additions to his collections of literature, and descanted upon the value of some of the ancient authors as foundations, both moral and physical, to the library.  Frank gave way to the argument, partly to gratify the parson, and partly from the proposition itself having a smack that touched his fancy.  The matter was therefore committed entirely to Mr. Chub, who forthwith set out on a voyage of exploration to the north.  I believe he got as far as Boston.  He certainly contrived to execute his commission with a curious felicity.  Some famous Elzevirs were picked up, and many other antiques that nobody but Mr. Chub would ever think of opening.

The cargo arrived at Swallow Burn in the dead of winter.  During the interval between the parson’s return from his expedition and the coming of the books, the reverend little schoolmaster was in a remarkably unquiet state of body, which almost prevented him from sleeping:  and it is said that the sight of the long-expected treasures had the happiest effect upon him.  There was ample accommodation for this new acquisition of ancient wisdom provided before its arrival, and Mr. Chub now spent a whole week in arranging the volumes on their proper shelves, having, as report affirms, altered the arrangement at least seven times during that period.  Everybody wondered what the old gentleman was at, all this time; but it was discovered afterwards, that he was endeavoring to effect a distribution of the works according to a minute division of human science, which entirely failed, owing to the unlucky accident of several of his departments being without any volumes.

After this matter was settled, he regularly spent his evenings in the library.  Frank Meriwether was hardly behind the parson in this fancy, and took, for a short time, to abstruse reading.  They both consequently deserted the little family circle every evening after tea, and might have continued to do so all the winter but for a discovery made by Hazard.

Ned had seldom joined the two votaries of science in their philosophical retirement, and it was whispered in the family that the parson was giving Frank a quiet course of lectures in the ancient philosophy, for Meriwether was known to talk a great deal, about that time, of the old and new Academicians.  But it happened upon one dreary winter night, during a tremendous snowstorm, which was banging the shutters and doors of the house so as to keep up a continual uproar, that Ned, having waited in the parlor for the philosophers until midnight, set out to invade their retreat—­not doubting that he should find them deep in study.  When he entered the library, both candles were burning in their sockets, with long, untrimmed wicks; the fire was reduced to its last embers, and, in an armchair on one side of the table, the parson was discovered in a sound sleep over Jeremy Taylor’s “Ductor