And I vowed that, even under the coming exigencies, when I should have to put on an appearance of grace and dignity,—exigencies which I clearly foresaw the moment my curate made his appearance, these old veterans should never be set aside or cast as lumber, when their aristocratic friends would make their appearance. And my books looked at me as much as to say:—
"You're not ashamed of us?"
No, dear silent friends, I should be the meanest, most ungrateful of mortals if I could be ashamed of you. For forty years you have been my companions in solitude; to you I owe whatever inspirations I have ever felt; from you have descended in copious streams the ideas that raised my poor life above the commonplace, and the sentiments that have animated every good thing and every holy purpose that I have accomplished. Friends that never obtruded on my loneliness by idle chatter and gossip, but always spoke wise, inspiriting things when most I needed them; friends that never replied in irritation to my own disturbed imaginings, but always uttered your calm wisdom like voices from eternity, to soothe, to control, or to elevate; friends that never tired and never complained; that went back to your recesses without a murmur; and never resented by stubborn silence my neglect,—treasures of thought and fountains of inspiration, you are the last things on earth on which my eyes shall rest in love, and like the orphans of my flock your future shall be my care. True, like your authors, you look sometimes disreputable enough. Your clothes, more to my shame, hang loose and tattered around you, and some of your faces are ink-stained or thumb-worn from contact with the years and my own carelessness. I would dress you in purple and fine linen if I may, yet you would reproach me and think I was weary of your homely faces. Like the beggar-maid you would entreat to be allowed to go back from queenly glory and pomp to the tatters and contentment of your years. So shall it be! but between you and me there must be no divorce, so long as time shall last for me. Other friends will come and go, but nothing shall dissolve our union based upon gratitude and such love as man's heart may have for the ideal and insensible.
When there had been time for perfecting all his arrangements, I strolled down to pay a formal visit to Father Letheby. The atmosphere of absolute primness and neatness struck my senses when I entered. Waxed floors, dainty rugs, shining brasses, coquettish little mirrors here and there, a choice selection of daintily bound volumes, and on a writing desk a large pile of virgin manuscript, spoke the scholar and the gentleman. My heart sank, as I thought how sick of all this he will be in a few weeks, when the days draw in, and the skies scowl, and the windows are washed, and the house rocked under the fierce sou'westers that sweep up the floor of the Atlantic, and throw all its dripping deluges on the little hamlet of Kilronan. But I said:—
"You have made a cosey little nest for yourself, Father Letheby; may you long enjoy it."
"Yes," he said, as if answering my horrible scepticism, "God has been very good to send me here."
Now what can you do with an optimist like that?
"There is just one drawback," I said, with a faint attempt at humor, "to all this æstheticism." I pointed to a window against which four very dirty noses were flattened, and four pairs of delighted eyes were wandering over this fairy-land, and a dirty finger occasionally pointed out some particularly attractive object.
"Poor little things," he said, "it gives them pleasure, and does me no harm."
"Then, why not bring them in?" I said.