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Of Sir Roger Coverly. — “Loved by everyone around him, his servants have no thought of leaving him. Hence they are all advanced in years and have grown old with their master. You would take his valet for his brother; the butler’s hair is quite gray, the groom is the gravest man I have seen in my life, and the coachman has the air of a senator. The master’s goodness shows even in the old dog that guards the house, and an old gray hackney fed with great care for the services she once rendered, though for many years she has no longer been able to render any.” There is something I have seen almost nowhere but here. A certain cheerfulness in fulfilling their duty is the distinguishing character of all the servants in this house. When a servant is called before his master, he does not come fearing to hear himself scolded for some slight fault, or threatened with being stripped of his clothes and dismissed, or overwhelmed with the gross insults unworthy masters utter only too often to good servants; instead, it is so that his master may learn from him which road he took to return so soon from his errand; whether he passed by such and such a farm, whether the good old man who keeps it is in good health, or whether he greeted him on the knight’s behalf, etc. His gentle and courteous manners so win the hearts of all his people that he never teases any one of them without all the others appearing in good humor, especially the one he is bantering with; but if he coughs, or shows some infirmity of old age, one cannot help perceiving a secret sorrow in the eyes of all his servants. To conclude, I shall speak of a painting at the end of his gallery. In it one sees two young men in a river, one of whom appears wholly naked and the other in livery. The first, who seems half dead, retains enough life to show extraordinary joy in his face and his goodwill toward the other. I thought the dying figure bore some resemblance to my friend and, when I looked at the butler accompanying me for an explanation, he told me that the man in livery was a servant of the knight’s; that he had been on the riverbank while his master was swimming, and that, seeing a faintness which had suddenly overcome him and was drawing him underwater, he had thrown himself in and saved the knight’s life. He added that the latter, on returning home, had made him give up his livery and had given him outright that pretty country house we had seen in the distance on our arrival here. I then remembered that the knight had told me a very worthy man lived there, to whom he was greatly indebted, without explaining further. When I appeared a little displeased with certain things in the painting, my interpreter told me that it had been done against the knight’s intention, but that the worthy servant had begged as a favor to be painted in the same clothes he had worn when he had the happiness of saving his master. — At Christmas he kept open table, following his ancestors’ custom, distributed several hams to his neighbors, and never failed to send a string of plum puddings and a pack of cards to every poor family in his parish.