nd had the pride of seeing the work growing under his
hands: and when one day Mr Rimbolt arrived from London with a great man
in the world of old books, for the express purpose of exhibiting to him
his treasures, it called an honest flush to the librarian's face to hear
the visitor say, "Upon my word, Rimbolt, I don't know whether to
congratulate you most on your books or the way in which they are kept!
Your librarian is a genius!"

If all his life could have been spent in the shelter of the library
Jeffreys would have had little to complain of. But it was not, and out
of it it needed no great discernment to perceive that he had anything
but a friend in Mrs Rimbolt. She was not openly hostile; it was not
worth her while to wage war on a poor domestic, but she seemed for all
that to resent his presence in the house, and to be possessed of a sort
of nervous desire to lose no opportunity of putting him down.

After about a week, during which time Jeffreys had not apparently taken
her hint as to the arranging of his person in "respectful" raiment.
Walker waited upon the librarian in his chamber with a brown-paper
parcel.

"My lady's compliments," said he, with a grin--he was getting to measure
the newcomer by his mistress's standard--"and hopes they'll suit."

It was a left-off suit of Mr Rimbolt's clothes, with the following
polite note: "As Mr Jeffreys does not appear disposed to accept Mrs
Rimbolt's advice to provide himself with clothes suitable for the post
he now occupies at Wildtree Towers, she must request him to accept the
accompanying parcel, with the wish that she may not again have occasion
to refer to so unpleasant a subject."

Jeffreys flushed scarlet as he read this elegant effusion, and, greatly
to Walker's astonishment crushed the letter up into a ball and flung it
out of the window.

"Take that away!" he shouted, pointing to the parcel.

"The mistress sent it for--"

"Take it away, do you hear?" shouted Jeffreys, starting up with a face
so terrible that Walker turned pale, and evacuated the room with the
offending parcel as quickly as possible.

Jeffreys' outburst of temper quickly evaporated, and indeed gave place
to a much more prolonged fit of shame. Was this like conquering the
evil in his nature, to be thus thrown off his balance by a trifle?

As it happened, he had ordered a suit of clothes in Overstone some days
back, and was expecting them that very afternoon.

Mr Rimbolt, on the da