NED BARTLAM. 33 



Ned's constant companion. One volume was care- 

 fully covered, and this I found to be Major's beau- 

 tiful edition of Izaac Walton. Having surveyed 

 the apartment and commended its comforts, I was 

 invited to partake of some cake which the old 

 housekeeper just then brought in. She was going 

 to leave the room, but Ned motioned her to stay, 

 and she seated herself by the side of a small round 

 oak- table, on which I had previously observed a half 

 finished worsted stocking with its attendant knitting- 

 pins ; these the old dame plied with great rapidity. 

 Ned afterwards told me that he found being alone 

 extremely unpleasant to one of his social feelings, 

 and that he, therefore, always made this faithful 

 servant sit with him. He reads the newspaper or 

 some entertaining book to her in the evening, 

 which, he said, kept him from going to sleep after 

 he had smoked his pipe. Indeed, a hint was 

 given to me that Ned was strongly suspected of 

 endeavouring to teach the old lady to play at 

 backgammon by way of beguiling the long even- 

 ings in winter. This, however, wants confir- 

 mation. I have already alluded to an attachment 

 which Ned was supposed to have conceived in 

 his younger days ; the name of its object, or the 

 circumstances which attended it, I have never heard 

 mentioned. They must, however, have been of 

 an unusually delicate and interesting nature to have 

 thus inclined him to solitude, and indeed occa- 

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