"Yes, poor fellow! and yet if his form was as straight as his heart, you would find few as beautiful. It would be impossible to tell all the good he does, and that with the miserable stipend of an Organist. Carambo! he might put our pampered priests to the blush, if such a thing were possible."
"He seems to be a great favourite with the Colonel and Miss Vernon," said I.
"Yes," returned Winter, "there is no one ranks so high in Miss Vernon's estimation. What between his music and misfortunes, he has got the entrée of her heart completely. His father was a clergyman of a respectable north country race, blessed, of course, with small means and a large family. I fancy poor Gilpin's must have been a sorry lot among a number of rough Northumberland lads; his deformity shut him out from arms, church, bar, and every profession; so he draws an indifferent existence from the art he so much loves. An invalid sister lived here with him. It seems their better-to-do brothers remembered to forget their unaspiring relatives, and the quiet neglected organist and his sister were all in all to each other, until about a year after the Vernons settled here, when, after a long and steady decline, she died in the same gentle unobtrusive manner she had lived, and poor Gilpin has been a lonely man since."
"It is impossible," continued Winter, striking his stick against the ground and speaking more thickly, which I began to perceive he usually did when excited, "it is impossible to describe Kate Vernon's thoughtful delicate kindness to the poor forlorn creature; faith, sir, it makes me ready to admit she is an angel when I think of it."
I mentally retracted my previous conclusions touching the speaker.
"Humph, ha!" said Mr. Winter, wiping his forehead, "I wonder what induced me to prose away about an unfortunate hump-backed organist to a moustached man of fashion; I am a great fool!"
"Mr. Winter," said I, gravely, "you must think moustaches and fashion terrible petrifiers of the heart, if you imagine such a tale as you have just sketched could excite no interest or sympathy in mine; believe me, there are few so thoroughly good for nothing, and I trust I am not in the minority."
"Cospetto" exclaimed the impetuous little man, "I don't think you are; and, Captain Egerton, do not set me down as a gruff uncourteous dog. You see what I am when I let out; am I not right to keep both bit and bridle on my imagination? Now I must leave you, as I have some business to attend—rather an unusual thing for me. I'll trot you out to-morrow, or any time you like, but I think I have put you on the best track for the present."
"Thanks to your judicious guidance; yes, I have enjoyed the ramble I assure you."