12 
ing tackle—filled the corners of this cosy room, 
while several old military relics hung on the 
wide chimney. 
Petro left me to enjoy my associations ; 
which I did with true sutisfaction. While I 
was seated before the genial warmth of the 
cheerful grate fire, endeavoring to decipher the 
nationality of the old prints on the walls, my 
new friend entered the room. 
“Ha, my young friend, I feel honored indeed 
by your apparent ease and comfort in my hum- 
ble abode, As we become better acquainted 
you will gradually learn my peculiar ideas of 
true home joys. Now kindly follow me up- 
stairs, where I spend the rapidly speeding 
hours of my but few lingering years, and you 
will learn how I compensate myself for the loss 
of human society.” 
“T sincerely hope, my dear sir, that your 
natural desire to manifest your true and full 
appreciation of my slight services, will not in- 
duce you to sufficiently restrain your very 
proper aversion to a stranger’s trespass within 
the sacred retreat of your private study. 
Doubtless manifold evidences of your sacredly 
quiet and isolated life are there discernible. I 
shall feel keenly the serious error of my pre- 
sumption in accepting an invitation to enter 
the sanctuary of your private life, simply to 
gratify a natural, though perhaps foolish, in- 
quisitiveness.” 
“Quiet your honest misgivings, my young 
