kept in good order; that one required coaxing and tender usage.  We went on to the wood, in all its summer foliage, and she showed us a little arbour where her uncle loved to sit, and where the birds would come at his whistle.  “They are looking at us out of the trees everywhere,” she said, “but they are shy of strangers”—­and indeed we heard soft chirping and rustling everywhere.  An old dog and a cat accompanied us.  She drew my attention to the latter.  “Look at Pippa,” she said, “she is determined to walk with us, and equally determined not to seem to need our company, as if she had come out of her own accord, and was surprised to find us in her garden.”  Pippa, hearing her name mentioned, stalked off with an air of mystery and dignity into the bushes, and we could see her looking out at us; but when we continued our stroll, she flew out past us, and walked on stiffly ahead.  “She gets a great deal of fun out of her little dramas,” said Miss ——.  “Now poor old Rufus has no sense of drama or mystery—­he is frankly glad of our company in a very low and common way—­there is nothing aristocratic about him.”  Old Rufus looked up and wagged his tail humbly.  Presently she went on to talk about her uncle, and contrived to tell me a great deal in a very few words.  I learnt that he was the last male representative of an old family, who had long held the small estate here; that after a distinguished Oxford career, he had met with a serious accident that had made him a permanent invalid.  That he had settled down here, not expecting to live more than a few years, and that he was now over seventy; it had been the quietest of lives, she said, and a very happy one, too, in spite of his disabilities.  He read a great deal, and interested himself in local affairs, but sometimes for weeks together could do nothing.  I gathered that she was his only surviving relation, and had lived with him from her childhood.  “You will think,” she added, laughing, “that he is the kind of person who is shown by his friends as a wonderful old man, and who turns out to be a person like the patriarch Casby, in Little Dorrit, whose sanctity, like Samson’s, depended entirely upon the length of his hair.  But he is not in the least like that, and I will leave you to find out for yourself whether he is wonderful or not.”

There was a touch of masculine irony and humour about this that took my fancy; and we went to the house, Miss ——­ saying that two new persons in one afternoon would be rather a strain for her uncle, much as he would enjoy it, and that his enjoyment must be severely limited.  “His illness,” she said, “is an obscure one; it is a want of adequate nervous force:  the doctors give it names, but don’t seem to be able to cure or relieve it; he is strong, physically and mentally, but the least over-exertion or over-strain knocks him up; it is as if virtue went out of him; though a partial niece may say that he has a plentiful stock of the material.”

We went in, and proceeded to a small library, full of books, with a big writing-table in the window.  The room was somewhat dark, and the feet fell softly on a thick carpet.  There was no sort of luxury about the room; a single portrait hung over the mantelpiece, and there was no trace of ornament anywhere, except a big bowl of roses on a table.