studio, to depict the engulfing of a city and the destruction of
a population. Morgan withdraws in his turn to the top of the
tower, threatening, when our guest comes, to draw all his meals
up to his new residence by means of a basket and string. I am
left alone for an hour, and then the upholsterer arrives from the
county town.

This worthy man, on being informed of our emergency, sees his
way, apparently, to a good stroke of business, and thereupon wins
my lasting gratitude by taking, in opposition to every one else,
a bright and hopeful view of existing circumstances.

"You'll excuse me, sir," he says, confidentially, when I show him
the rooms in the lean-to, "but this is a matter of experience.
I'm a family man myself, with grown-up daughters of my own, and
the natures of young women are well known to me. Make their rooms
comfortable, and you make 'em happy. Surround their lives, sir,
with a suitable atmosphere of furniture, and you never hear a
word of complaint drop from their lips. Now, with regard to these
rooms, for example, sir--you put a neat French bedstead in that
corner, with curtains conformable--say a tasty chintz; you put on
that bedstead what I will term a sufficiency of bedding; and you
top up with a sweet little eider-down quilt, as light as roses,
and similar the same in color. You do that, and what follows? You
please her eye when she lies down at night, and you please her
eye when she gets up in the morning--and you're all right so far,
and so is she. I will not dwell, sir, on the toilet-table, nor
will I seek to detain you about the glass to show her figure, and
the other glass to show her face, because I have the articles in
stock, and will be myself answerable for their effect on a lady's