“Not very dangerous people, those, Miss Oldcastle?” I said, at last.

“I thank you very much for taking me to see them,” she returned, cordially.

“You won’t believe all you may happen to hear against the working people now?”

“I never did.”

“There are ill-conditioned, cross-grained, low-minded, selfish, unbelieving people amongst them.  God knows it.  But there are ladies and gentlemen amongst them too.”

“That old man is a gentleman.”

“He is.  And the only way to teach them all to be such, is to be such to them.  The man who does not show himself a gentleman to the working people—­why should I call them the poor? some of them are better off than many of the rich, for they can pay their debts, and do it—­”

I had forgot the beginning of my sentence.

“You were saying that the man who does not show himself a gentleman to the poor—­”

“Is no gentleman at all—­only a gentle without the man; and if you consult my namesake old Izaak, you will find what that is.”

“I will look.  I know your way now.  You won’t tell me anything I can find out for myself.”

“Is it not the best way?”

“Yes.  Because, for one thing, you find out so much more than you look for.”

“Certainly that has been my own experience.”

“Are you a descendant of Izaak Walton?”

“No.  I believe there are none.  But I hope I have so much of his spirit that I can do two things like him.”

“Tell me.”

“Live in the country, though I was not brought up in it; and know a good man when I see him.”

“I am very glad you asked me to go to-night.”

“If people only knew their own brothers and sisters, the kingdom of heaven would not be far off.”

I do not think Miss Oldcastle quite liked this, for she was silent thereafter; though I allow that her silence was not conclusive.  And we had now come close to the house.

“I wish I could help you,” I said.

“In what?”

“To bear what I fear is waiting you.”

“I told you I was equal to that.  It is where we are unequal that we want help.  You may have to give it me some day—­who knows?”

I left her most unwillingly in the porch, just as Sarah (the white wolf) had her hand on the door, rejoicing in my heart, however, over her last words.

My reader will not be surprised, after all this, if, before I get very much further with my story, I have to confess that I loved Miss Oldcastle.

When young Tom and I entered the room, his grandfather rose and tottered to meet him.  His father made one step towards him and then hesitated.  Of all conditions of the human mind, that of being ashamed of himself must have been the strangest to Thomas Weir.  The man had never in his life, I believe, done anything mean or dishonest, and therefore he had had less frequent opportunities than most people of being ashamed of