in the seventh story, I began to feel, for the first time, as if
my scattered wits were coming back to me. By the time the evening
had closed in I had hit on no less than three excellent ideas,
all providing for the future comfort and amusement of our fair
guest. The first idea was to get her a Welsh pony; the second was
to hire a piano from the county town; the third was to send for a
boxful of novels from London. I must confess I thought these
projects for pleasing her very happily conceived, and Owen agreed
with me. Morgan, as usual, took the opposite view. He said she
would yawn over the novels, turn up her nose at the piano, and
fracture her skull with the pony. As for the housekeeper, she
stuck to her text as stoutly in the evening as she had stuck to
it in the morning. "Pianner or no pianner, story-book or no
story-book, pony or no pony, you mark my words, sir--that young
woman will run away."

Such were the housekeeper's parting words when she wished me
good-night.

When the next morning came, and brought with it that terrible
waking time which sets a man's hopes and projects before him, the
great as well as the small, stripped bare of every illusion, it
is not to be concealed that I felt less sanguine of our success
in entertaining the coming guest. So far as external preparations
were concerned, there seemed, indeed, but little to improve; but
apart from these, what had we to offer, in ourselves and our
society, to attract her? There lay the knotty point of the
question, and there the grand difficulty of finding an answer.

I fall into serious reflection while I am dressing on the