CHAPTER LXIV.
New Acquaintance--Old French Style--The Portrait--Taciturnity--The Evergreen Tree--The Dark Hour--The Flash--Ancestors--A Fortunate Man--A Posthumous Child--Antagonistic Ideas--The Hawks--Flaws--The Pony--Irresistible Impulse--Favourable Crisis--The Topmost Branch--Twenty Feet--Heartily Ashamed.
I found the stranger awaiting me at the door of the inn.

"Like yourself, I am fond of walking," said he, "and when any little business calls me to this place I generally come on foot." We were soon out of the town, and in a very beautiful country.

After proceeding some distance on the high road, we turned off, and were presently in one of those mazes of lanes for which England is famous; the stranger at first seemed inclined to be taciturn; a few observations, however, which I made, appeared to rouse him, and he soon exhibited not only considerable powers of observation, but stores of information which surprised me.

So pleased did I become with my new acquaintance, that I soon ceased to pay the slightest attention either to place or distance.
At length the stranger was silent, and I perceived that we had arrived at a handsome iron gate and lodge; the stranger having rung a bell, the gate was opened by an old man, and we proceeded along a gravel path, which in about five minutes brought us to a large brick house, built something in the old French style, having a spacious lawn before it, and immediately in front a pond in which were golden fish, and in the middle a stone swan discharging quantities of water from its bill.

We ascended a spacious flight of steps to the door, which was at once flung open, and two servants with powdered hair, and in livery of blue plush, came out and stood one on either side as we passed the threshold.