"
"Thank you, sir, I am close to my seat."
"Your visitors acquire blind eyes, Belamour," said Dr. Godfrey,
cheerfully.
"More truly they become eyes to the blind," was the answer. "I feel
myself a man of the world again, since this amiable young lady has
conned the papers on my behalf, and given herself the trouble of
learning the choicest passages of the poets to repeat to me."
"You are very good, sir," returned Aurelia; "it is my great pleasure."
"That I can well believe," said Dr. Godfrey. "Have these agreeable
recitations made you acquainted with the new poem on the _Seasons_
by Mr. James Thomson?"
"No," replied Mr. Belamour, "my acquaintance with the _belles letters_
ceased nine years ago."
"The descriptions have been thought extremely effective. Those of
autumn were recalled to my mind on my way."
Dr. Godfrey proceeded to recite some twenty lines of blank verse, for
in those days people had more patience and fewer books, and exercised
their memories much more than their descendants do. Listening was far
from being thought tedious.
"'But see the fading many-coloured roads,
Shade deepening over shade, the country round
Imbrown; a crowded umbrage, dusk and dim,
Of every hue, from wan, declining green,
To sooty dark.
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