He then told me that Bartram was the temple of liberty, that the health of a whole life was founded in a few years of youth, air, and exercise, and that accomplishments, at least, if not education, should wait upon health.  Therefore, while at Bartram, I should dispose of my time quite as I pleased, and the more I plundered the garden and gipsied in the woodlands, the better.

Then he told me what a miserable invalid he was, and how the doctors interfered with his frugal tastes.  A glass of beer and a mutton chop—­his ideal of a dinner—­he dared not touch.  They made him drink light wines, which he detested, and live upon those artificial abominations all liking for which vanishes with youth.

There stood on a side-table, in its silver coaster, a long-necked Rhenish bottle, and beside it a thin pink glass, and he quivered his fingers in a peevish way toward them.

But unless he found himself better very soon, he would take his case into his own hands, and try the dietary to which nature pointed.

He waved his fingers toward his bookcases, and told me his books were altogether at my service during my stay; but this promise ended, I must confess, disappointingly.  At last, remarking that I must be fatigued, he rose, and kissed me with a solemn tenderness, placed his hand upon what I now perceived to be a large Bible, with two broad silk markers, red and gold, folded in it—­the one, I might conjecture, indicating the place in the Old, the other in the New Testament.  It stood on the small table that supported the waxlights, with a handsome cut bottle of eau-de-cologne, his gold and jewelled pencil-case, and his chased repeater, chain, and seals, beside it.  There certainly were no indications of poverty in Uncle Silas’s room; and he said impressively—­

’Remember that book; in it your father placed his trust, in it he found his reward, in it lives my only hope; consult it, my beloved niece, day and night, as the oracle of life.’

Then he laid his thin hand on my head, and blessed me, and then kissed my forehead.

‘No—­a!’ exclaimed Cousin Milly’s lusty voice.  I had quite forgotten her presence, and looked at her with a little start.  She was seated on a very high old-fashioned chair; she had palpably been asleep; her round eyes were blinking and staring glassily at us; and her white legs and navvy boots were dangling in the air.

‘Have you anything to remark about Noah?’ enquired her father, with a polite inclination and an ironical interest.

‘No—­a,’ she repeated in the same blunt accents; ’I didn’t snore; did I?  No—­a.’

The old man smiled and shrugged a little at me—­it was the smile of disgust.

‘Good night, my dear Maud;’ and turning to her, he said, with a peculiar gentle sharpness, ’Had not you better wake, my dear, and try whether your cousin would like some supper?’

So he accompanied us to the door, outside which we found L’Amour’s candle awaiting us.