THE YOUNG PROFESSOR 149 



separation must have been of considerable length, how- 

 ever, as the thing which probably makes me remember 

 it was his having grown a beard, and that this was the 

 first time that my mother and I had seen him with it. 

 As a very young man, he shaved completely, not even 

 wearing a moustache; and as was the custom with many in 

 those days, wearing his hair rather long. I do not remem- 

 ber him, however, very distinctly except with his hair 

 cut short as was his custom in later life. His hair was 

 very dark brown and straight, but his beard was decidedly 

 sandy in color. His eyes were a rather dark, clear gray. 

 In his youth and early middle life he was slender, but 

 later he grew stout. He was very simple in his habits, 

 and cared but little for amusements, his favorite recreation 

 being novel reading. He liked clean, wholesome stones, 

 and had no taste for the problem novel; but, aside from 

 this, he could read and enjoy almost anything from King 

 Solomon's Mines to Miss Yonge, and he particularly 

 delighted in children's stories. He could read the veriest 

 trash with zest as long as virtue was triumphant and vice 

 did not make itself too prominent. He was charmed 

 with Treasure Island, being almost ready to indorse Mr. 

 Gladstone's verdict that it was the 'best story he ever 

 read,' which, as Lord Playfair told us Mr. Gladstone had 

 once told him. In the days of Bonner's New York Ledger, 

 the Professor read the weekly numbers regularly and 

 especially enjoyed the stories of Mrs. E. D. N. South- 

 worth, a Georgetown neighbor. He used to say that 

 reading the Ledger rested his mind. Little Lord Fauntle- 

 roy took his heart from the time it was published in St. 

 Nicholas. On one occasion I remember his being missed 

 during the busiest hours of the morning's work in the 

 office. His secretary sat there with his notebook in hand, 



