his fortune the week before last; but he wouldn't have it. Jones is
slow, and--well---- And Clara is with the Hopkinses: I believe so, at
least; and Maria is---- Confound me if I know where Maria is; but I
suppose she's somewhere. Her mother managed it all: I didn't
interfere. And so now, as you know the best and the worst, let's come
to dinner.'

An empty house is a dismal thing--almost as dismal as a dead body. The
echo, as you walk, is dismal; the blank, stripped walls, shewing the
places where the pictures and the mirrors have been, are dismal; the
bits of straw and the odds and ends of cord are dismal; the coldness,
the stillness, the blankness, are dismal. It is no longer a
habitation, but a shell.

In the dining-room stood a small deal-table, covered with a scanty
cloth, like an enlarged towel; and a baked joint, with the potatoes
under it, smoked before us. The foaming pewter-can stood beside it,
with a couple of plates, and knives and steel forks. Two Windsor
chairs, of evident public-house mould, completed the festive
preparations and the furniture of the room. The whole thing looked
very dreary; and as I gazed, I felt my appetite fade under the sense
of desolation. Not so Happy Jack. 'Come, sit down, sit down. I don't
admire baked meat as a rule, but you know, as somebody says--

"When spits and jacks are gone and spent,
Then ovens are most excellent,"
And also most con-ven-i-ent.

The people at the Chequers managed it all. Excellent people they are.
I owe them some money, which I shall have great pleasure in paying as