I meekly replied that I had no doubt Polly would be delighted to see her dear uncle, and as for inheriting, if it came to that, I did n't know any one with a greater capacity for that than she. "That depends," said the gruff old smoker, "how I like ye. A fortune, scraped up in forty years in Ingy, ain't to be thrown away in a minute. But what a house this is to live in!"; the uncomfortable old relative went on, throwing a contemptuous glance round the humble cottage. "Is this all of it?" "In the winter it is all of it," I said, flushing up; "but in the summer, when the doors and windows are open, it is as large as anybody's house. And," I went on, with some warmth, "it was large enough just before you came in, and pleasant enough. And besides," I said, rising into indignation, "you can not get anything much better in this city short of eight hundred dollars a year, payable first days of January, April, July, and October, in advance, and my salary...." "Hang your salary, and confound your impudence and your seven-by-nine hovel! Do you think you have anything to say about the use of my money, scraped up in forty years in Ingy? THINGS HAVE GOT TO BE CHANGED!" he burst out, in a voice that rattled the glasses on the sideboard. I should think they were. Even as I looked into the little fireplace it enlarged, and there was an enormous grate, level with the floor, glowing with seacoal; and a magnificent mantel carved in oak, old and brown; and over it hung a landscape, wide, deep, summer in the foreground with all the gorgeous coloring of the tropics, and beyond hills of blue and far mountains lying in rosy light. I held my breath as I looked down the marvelous perspective. Looking round for a second, I caught a glimpse of a Hindoo at each window, who vanished as if they had been whisked off by enchantment; and the close walls that shut us in fled away. Had cohesion and gravitation given out? Was it the "Great Consummation" of the year 18-? It was all like the swift transformation of a dream, and I pinched my arm to make sure that I was not the subject of some diablerie.