condition, always made a point of pulling the paper down. Neither
the landlord nor Ikey could suggest why he made such a fool of
himself.

Except that the house had an immensely large rambling loft at top,
I made no other discoveries. It was moderately well furnished, but
sparely. Some of the furniture--say, a third--was as old as the
house; the rest was of various periods within the last half-
century. I was referred to a corn-chandler in the market-place of
the county town to treat for the house. I went that day, and I
took it for six months.

It was just the middle of October when I moved in with my maiden
sister (I venture to call her eight-and-thirty, she is so very
handsome, sensible, and engaging). We took with us, a deaf stable-
man, my bloodhound Turk, two women servants, and a young person
called an Odd Girl. I have reason to record of the attendant last
enumerated, who was one of the Saint Lawrence's Union Female
Orphans, that she was a fatal mistake and a disastrous engagement.

The year was dying early, the leaves were falling fast, it was a
raw cold day when we took possession, and the gloom of the house
was most depressing. The cook (an amiable woman, but of a weak
turn of intellect) burst into tears on beholding the kitchen, and
requested that her silver watch might be delivered over to her
sister (2 Tuppintock's Gardens, Liggs's Walk, Clapham Rise), in the
event of anything happening to her from the damp. Streaker, the
housemaid, feigned cheerfulness, but was the greater martyr. The
Odd Girl, who had never been in the country, alone was pleased, and
made arrangements for sowing an acorn in the garden outside the