COUSIN PHILLIS. 77
subjects as those on which his wife, with her practical experience of every-day life, was an authority; while Phillis, devoted to her father, unconsciously followed his lead, totally unaware, in her filial reverence, of his motive for doing so.
To return to Holdsworth. The minister had at more than one time spoken of him to me with slight distrust, principally occasioned by the suspicion that his careless words were not always those of soberness and truth. But it was more as a protest against the fascination which the younger man evidently exercised over the elder one — more as it were to strengthen himself against yielding to this fascination — that the minister spoke out to me about this failing of Holdsworth's, as it appeared to him. In return Holdsworth was subdued by the minister's uprightness and goodness, and delighted with his clear intellect — his strong healthy craving after further knowledge. I never met two men who took more thorough pleasure and relish in each other's society. To Phillis his relation continued that of an elder brother: he directed her studies into new paths, he patiently drew out the expression of many of her thoughts, and perplexities, and unformed theories — scarcely ever now falling into the vein of banter which she was so slow to understand.
One day — harvest-time — he had been drawing on a loose piece of paper — sketching ears of corn, sketching carts drawn by bullocks and laden with grapes — all the time talking with Phillis and me, cousin Holman putting in her not pertinent remarks, when suddenly ho said to Phillis,—
"Keep your head still; I see a sketch! I have often
