Doctor and Mrs. Jackson 133 



allusions, those reminiscences of old reading, or 

 even now and then three words of Latin from 

 Virgil or the " Imitatio," with which his lifelong 

 friend would strain a point to please him. They 

 had been at school together, and at college to- 

 gether, and now they were spending their last 

 years together, for the old Scholar had come, 

 none of us knew whence, and settled down in the 

 manor-house by the churchyard, hard by the 

 Rectory of his old companion. And so they 

 walked together through the still and shady 

 avenues of life's evening, wishing for no change, 

 reading much and talking little, lovers of old 

 times and old books, seeking the truth, not 

 indeed in the world around them, but in the 

 choice words of the wise man of old : " Pia et 

 humilis inquisitio veritatis, per sanas patrum 

 sententias studens ambulare." 



And Dr. and Mrs. Jackson looked down on 

 them from their gurgoyles, and approved. I 

 suppose that old grey-headed bird did not know 

 that he had been honoured with a doctorate, 

 though he looked wise enough to be doctor of 

 divinity, law and medicine, all in one ; it had 



