it? At all events you will have the
carriage at your door at _six_ this evening.

To drive or not to drive,
That is the question.

You shall not be detained one half-hour,--but tea will be ready
on your arrival.

"I fell asleep after the jolting, and felt no bad effect. See
what it is to be so young.

"Ever yours affectionately,

"W. S. L."

There was little to cheer any of us in that last drive, and few words
were spoken. Stopping at his house on our way home, we sipped a final
cup of tea in almost complete silence. I tried to say merry things and
look forward a few years to another meeting, but the old man shook his
head sadly, saying: "I shall never see you again. I cannot live through
another winter, nor do I desire to. Life to me is but a counterpart of
Dead Sea fruit; and now that you are going away, there is one less link
to the chain that binds me."

Landor, in the flood-tide of intellect and fortune, could command
attention; Landor, tottering with an empty purse towards his ninth
decade, could count his Florentine friends in one breath; thus it
happened that the loss of the least of these made the old man sad.

At last the hour of leave-taking arrived. Culling a flower from the
little garden, taking a final turn through those three little rooms,
patting Giallo on the head, who, sober through sympathy, looked as
though he wondered what it all meant, we turned to Landor, who entered
the front room dragging an immense album after him. It was the same that
he had bought years before of Barker, the English artist, for fifty
guineas, and about which previous mention has been made. "You are not to
get rid of me yet," said Landor, bearing the album toward the stairs. "I
shall see you home, and bid you good by at your own door."

"But, dear Mr. Landor, what are you doing with that big book? You will
surely injure yourself by attempting to carry it."

"This album is intended for you, and you must take it with you
to-night."

Astonished at this munificent present, I hardly knew how to refuse it
without offending the generous giver. Stopping him at the door, I
endeavored to dissuade him from giving away so valuable an album; and,
finding him resolute in his determination, begged him to compromise by
leaving it to me in his will.

"No, my dear," he replied, "I at least have lived long enough to know
that a bird in t