I was startled by meeting
Cousin Thomas."

"How old is he?" I asked, after a pause of castle-building.

"He must be about seventy, I think, my dear," said Miss Pole, blowing up
my castle, as if by gunpowder, into small fragments.

Very soon after--at least during my long visit to Miss Matilda--I had the
opportunity of seeing Mr. Holbrook; seeing, too, his first encounter with
his former love, after thirty or forty years' separation. I was helping to
decide whether any of the new assortment of colored silks which they had
just received at the shop, would help to match a gray and black
mousseline-de-laine that wanted a new breadth, when a tall, thin, Don
Quixote-looking old man came into the shop for some woolen gloves. I had
never seen the person (who was rather striking) before, and I watched him
rather attentively, while Miss Matey listened to the shopman. The stranger
wore a blue coat with brass buttons, drab breeches, and gaiters, and
drummed with his fingers on the counter until he was attended to. When he
answered the shop-boy's question, "What can I have the pleasure of showing
you to-day, sir?" I saw Miss Matilda start, and then suddenly sit down;
and instantly I guessed who it was. She had made some inquiry which had to
be carried round to the other shopman.

"Miss Jenkyns wants the black sarcenet two-and-twopence the yard;" and Mr.
Holbrook had caught the name, and was across the shop in two strides.

"Matey--Miss Matilda--Miss Jenkyns! God bless my soul! I should not have
known you. How are you? how are you?" He kept shaking her hand in a way
which proved the warmth of his friendship; but he repeated so often, as if
to himself, "I should not have known you!" that any sentimental romance
which I might be inclined to build, was quite done away with by his
manner.

However, he kept talking to us all the time we were in the shop; and then
waving the shopman with the unpurchased gloves on one side, with "Another
time, sir! another time!" he walked home with us. I am happy to say my
client, Miss Matilda, also left the shop in an equally bewildered state,
not having purchased either green or red silk. Mr. Holbrook was evidently
full with honest, loud-spoken joy at meeting his old love again; he
touched on the changes that had taken place; he even spoke of Miss Jenkyns
as "Your poor sister! Well, well! we have all our faults;" and bade us
good-by with many a hope that he should soon see Miss Matey again. She
wen