occasional lessons which he gave, and from letting the rooms that we
took, a drawing-room opening into a bed-room, out of which a smaller
chamber led. His daughter was his housekeeper: a son, whom we never
saw, supposed to be leading the same life that his father had done
before him, only we never saw or heard of any pupils; and there was
one hard-working, honest little Scottish maiden, square, stumpy,
neat, and plain, who might have been any age from eighteen to forty.

Looking back on the household now, there was perhaps much to admire
in their quiet endurance of decent poverty; but at this time, their
poverty grated against many of my tastes, for I could not recognize
the fact, that in a town the simple graces of fresh flowers, clean
white muslin curtains, pretty bright chintzes, all cost money, which
is saved by the adoption of dust-coloured moreen, and mud-coloured
carpets. There was not a penny spent on mere elegance in that room;
yet there was everything considered necessary to comfort: but after
all, such mere pretences of comfort! a hard, slippery, black horse-
hair sofa, which was no place of rest; an old piano, serving as a
sideboard; a grate, narrowed by an inner supplement, till it hardly
held a handful of the small coal which could scarcely ever be stirred
up into a genial blaze. But there were two evils worse than even
this coldness and bareness of the rooms: one was that we were
provided with a latch-key, which allowed us to open the front door
whenever we came home from a walk, and go upstairs without meeting
any face of welcome, or hearing the sound of a human voice in the
apparently deserted house--Mr. Mackenzie piqued himself on the
noiselessness of his establishment; and the other, which might almost
seem to neutralize the first, was the danger we were always exposed
to on going out, of the old man--sly, miserly, and intelligent--
popping out upon us from his room, close to the left hand of the