se in your wishes.
Your first is unreasonable, and your second will come upon you but too
soon."

"I did not mean to flatter you," I replied, looking proudly; "for, I
would neither be an eagle nor an old man, longer than those beautiful
clouds last, and the warm sunset makes your face look so-so--"

"Never mind--you shall save your fine speeches for the young ladies."

"But I've got some for the gentlemen, too: and there's one running in my
head just now."

"I should like to hear it."

"Should you? Well, this fine evening put me in mind of it; it is Mrs
Barbauld's Ode." And then putting myself into due attitude, I mouthed
it through, much to my own, and still more to Mr R's satisfaction.
That was a curious, a simple, and yet a cheering scene. My listener was
swaying to and fro, with the cadences of the poetry; I with passionate
fervour ranting before him; and, in the meantime, his rod and line,
unnoticed by either, were navigating peacefully, yet rapidly, down the
river. When I had concluded, his tackle was just turning an eddy far
down below us, and the next moment was out of sight.

Without troubling ourselves much about the loss, shortly after we were
seen hand in hand, walking down the village in earnest conversation. I
went home with him--I shared with him and his amiable daughters a light
and early supper of fruit and pastry; and such was the simultaneous
affection that sprang up between us--so confiding was it in its nature,
and so little worldly, that I had gained the threshold, and was about
taking my leave, ere it occurred to him to ask, or myself to say, who I
was, and where I resided.

From that evening, excepting when employed in my studies, we were almost
inseparable. I told him my strange story; and he seemed to love me for
it a hundred-fold more. He laid all the nobility, and even the princes
of the blood, under contribution, to procure me a father. He came to
the conclusion firmly, and at once, that Mrs Cherfeuil was my mother.
Oh! this mystery made him superlatively happy. And when he came to the
knowledge of my poetical talents, he was really in an ecstasy of
delight. He rhymed himself. He gave me subjects--he gave me advice--he
gave me emendations and interpolations. He re-youthed himself. In many
a sequestered nook in the beautiful vicinity of the village, we have
sat, each with his pencil and paper in his hand--now ranting, now
conversing--and in his converse the instruction I