Rosa clapped her hands. “That is the thing for us. We don't want a large house, only a beautiful one, and in Mayfair.” “Then the Bijou will be sure to suit you.” He took them to the Bijou. The Bijou had a small dining-room with one very large window in two sheets of plate glass, and a projecting balcony full of flowers; a still smaller library, which opened on a square yard enclosed. Here were a great many pots, with flowers dead or dying from neglect. On the first floor a fair-sized drawing-room, and a tiny one at the back: on the second floor, one good bedroom, and a dressing-room, or little bedroom: three garrets above. Rosa was in ecstasies. “It is a nest,” said she. “It is a bank-note,” said the agent, stimulating equal enthusiasm, after his fashion. “You can always sell the lease again for more money.” Christopher kept cool. “I don't want a house to sell, but to live in, and do my business; I am a physician: now the drawing-room is built over the entrance to a mews; the back rooms all look into a mews: we shall have the eternal noise and smell of a mews. My wife's rest will be broken by the carriages rolling in and out. The hall is fearfully small and stuffy. The rent is abominably high; and what is the premium for, I wonder?” “Always a premium in Mayfair, sir. A lease is property here: the gentleman is not acquainted with this part, madam.” “Oh, yes, he is,” said Rosa, as boldly as a six years' wife: “he knows everything.” “Then he knows that a house of this kind at a hundred and thirty pounds a year in Mayfair is a bank-note.” Staines turned to Rosa. “The poor patients, where am I to receive them?” “In the stable,” suggested the house agent. “Oh!” said Rosa, shocked. “Well, then, the coach-house. Why, there's plenty of room for a brougham, and one horse, and fifty poor patients at a time: beggars musn't be choosers; if you give them physic gratis, that is enough: you ain't bound to find 'em a palace to sit down in, and hot coffee and rump steaks all round, doctor.” This tickled Rosa so that she burst out laughing, and thenceforward giggled at intervals, wit of this refined nature having all the charm of novelty for her. They inspected the stables, which were indeed the one redeeming feature in the horrid little Bijou; and then the agent would show them the kitchen, and the new stove. He expatiated on this to Mrs. Staines. “Cook a dinner for thirty people, madam.” “And there's room for them to eat it--in the road,” said Staines. The agent reminded him there were larger places to be had, by a very simple process, viz., paying for them. Staines thought of the large, comfortable house in Harewood Square. “One hundred and thirty pounds a year for this poky little hole?” he groaned. “Why, it is nothing at all for a Bijou.” “But it is too much for a bandbox.” Rosa laid her hand on his arm, with an imploring glance.