As uncle Bryan predicted in his letter, it did not take us long. Everything we possessed went into one small trunk, and there was room for more when everything was in. The smoke-dried monkey of a man in stone--the precious relic I had inherited from my grandmother--had been carefully taken care of, and now lay at the bottom of the trunk. It had not brought us much luck, and I regarded it with something like aversion. From the inscrutable eye of a landlady living in the house nothing can be concealed, and our landlady hovered in the passage, divining (with that peculiar inspiration with which all of her class are gifted) that something important was taking place. My mother called her in, and paid her the week's rent in lieu of a week's notice. She was deeply moved, after the fashion of landladies (living in the house), when lodgers who have paid regularly take their departure. The fear of another lodger not so punctual in paying as the last harrows their souls. As my mother did not enter into particulars, not even mentioning to the landlady where we were moving to, the inquisitive creature invited confidence by producing from a mysterious recess in her flannel petticoat a bottle of gin and a glass. My mother, however, declined to be bribed, much to the landlady's chagrin; after this she evidently regarded us with less favour. 'Uncle Bryan sent a boy with a wheelbarrow, Chris,' said my mother, 'to wheel your trunk home. He's waiting at the door now.' '_With_ the wheelbarrow?' I asked gaily. I was in high spirits at the better prospect which lay before us. 'Yes, dear. _With_ the wheelbarrow.' I could not help laughing, it seemed to me such a comical idea. My mother cast an affectionate look at the humble room we were leaving for ever, and then we carried the trunk down to the street door, the landlady _not_ assisting. There stood the boy with the wheelbarrow. The trunk was lifted in, and we marched away, the boy trundling the barrow, we holding on in front, for fear the trunk should fall into the road. All the neighbours rushed into the street to look at the procession. CHAPTER IX. UNCLE BRYAN INTRODUCES HIMSELF.