d his promise to the
little girl, and got a clean shave before retiring.

CHAPTER IV.

Collingwood--Colonel Morton--Maguffin Engaged--Stepping
Westward--Wild Thyme and a Bath--The Shale-works--Muggins and the
Clergymen--Durham Mustard, and Marjorie--The Squire--The Grinstun
Man--Lunch, Wordsworth and Original Poetry--Two Old People on the
Blue Mountains.

At supper they had, for their vis-a-vis, a tall, aristocratic-looking
man, attired airily in a mixture of jean and silk. His nose was
aquiline, his eyes grey and piercing withal, his hair grey, but
abundant, and his clean shaved mouth and chin mingled delicacy with
strength of character.

"The weathah has been wahm, gentlemen," he remarked; to which statement
they assented.

"I obsehved you entah the ho-tel, and pehceived that you are travelling
for pleasuhe by yo-ah knapsacks. I also am travelling, partly foh
pleasuhe, partly foh mattahs of family business. My ideahs, gentlemen,
are old fashioned, too much so foh railyoads. The Mississippi is ouah
natuhal highway from the South, but, unfohtunately, the to me unpleasant
railyoad had to connect its head watahs with Lake Michigan, by which
route I find myself heah, on my way to a city called To-hon-to. You know
it, I pehsume?"

Wilkinson's geographical lore was now unfolded. He discussed the
Mississippi, although he had not been on that river, exhibited an
intimate acquaintance with cities and routes which had never seen him in
the flesh, and, by his quiet, gentlemanly, and, to the much older man,
deferential tone, was admitted to the confidence of Colonel Morton, of
Louisiana, South American trader, ship-owner and the possessor of a fine
estate, which, although it had suffered greatly during the war, in which
the colonel commanded a cavalry regiment, was yet productive and
remunerative.

"I am a widowah, suh, and a childless old man," continued the colonel;
"my only boy fell in the wah ah, and it broke his mother's heaht. Pahdon
me," he said, as his voice shook a little, and the least glimmer of a
tear stood in his eye, "I rahely talk of these mattahs of a puhely
pehsonal kind, but, as you are kind enough to be intehested in my
affaiahs, I say this much by way of explanation."

"I am sure, Colonel Morton, we deeply sympathize with you in so great a
double bereavement," interposed the dominie.

"Indeed we do, sir, most sincerely," added the lawyer.

"I thank you, gentlemen,"