My own with difficulty refrained echoing it when I heard his voice answer her, and in a few minutes they parted, and he rapped at the door and entered my little parlour. He came in hobbling, leaning on a stick, and with a large cloth shoe over one of his feet, which was double the size of the other.
We sat down together, and he soon inquired what I had done with his little book. I had only, I answered, read two more letters.
“Have you read two?” he cried, in a voice rather disappointed; and I found he was actually come to devote the morning, which he knew to be unappropriated on my part, to reading it on to me himself. Then he took up the book and read on from the fifth letter. But he read at first with evident uneasiness, throwing down the book at every noise, and stopping to listen at every sound. At last he asked me if anybody was likely to come?
Not a soul, I said, that I knew or expected.
He laughed a little at his question and apparent anxiety but with an openness that singularly marks his character, he frankly added, “I must put the book away, pure as it is, if any one comes or, without knowing a word of the contents, they will run away with the title alone, exclaiming, ‘Mr. Fairly reading love letters to Miss Burney!’ A fine story that would make!”
‘Pon honour, thought I, I would not hear such a tale for the world. However, he now pursued his reading more at his ease.
I will not tell you what we said of them in talking them over. Our praise I have chiefly given—our criticism must wait till you have read them yourselves. They are well worth your seeking. I am greatly mistaken if you do not read them with delight.
In the course of the discussion he glided, I know not how, upon the writings of another person, saying he never yet had talked them over with me.
“It is much kinder not,” cried I hastily....
“Well, but,” cried he laughing, “may I find a fault? Will you hear a criticism, if nothing of another sort?” I was forced to accede to this.