“If you please, ma’am,” said the prim little landlady, whose lodgings had not let so well as usual, and who was not unwilling to get rid of her house. Nancy ran through it delighted, taking her husband from one room to another. “This you could have to write your letters in, Arthur, and this would be my drawing-room,” cried Nancy, glowing with not unlovely pride; “and look what a dear little Davenport, and an inlaid table, and that funny little three-cornered thing in the corner, and a nice white cloth over the carpet--so clean-looking--almost like our white carpets in Paris.” Arthur allowed himself to be dragged all over the house. It was like a hundred, nay a million other semi-detached suburban villakins. The little rooms were neat enough, if not beautiful; and Arthur, though he had been brought up in Oakley, amid his mother’s favourite splendours, was not sufficiently fastidious to be annoyed by the common-place surroundings. It was not the want of beauty that moved him; but the sensation of “settling down,” which was so delightful to Nancy, affected his imagination like a nightmare. She was so satisfied herself, so anxious to know every particular about the maids whom Mrs. Smith “could recommend,” so eager about everything, that his gloomy looks passed without remark. And Arthur did not check her delight until, having settled matters with Mrs. Smith, she insisted upon carrying him next to No. 9, which was to let unfurnished. “This is the most interesting,” she said. “Come along, Arthur; for you know this will be our real ’ome--this we will furnish ourselves;” and she dragged him to the door. Nancy did not usually drop her h’s, but she was too familiar with this form of the word to call it anything but ’ome. Here, however, Arthur had strength of mind to resist. “That is enough for to-day. You must not ask me to do more to-day. After dinner we will talk it all over, all about it, over the fire.” “After dinner?” said Nancy. “Oh! I said we would go and see mother, and tell her what we had settled. Why, what is the matter, Arthur--may not I go and see mother? We have only been one day back, and you begin to make faces already! You cannot say I am bringing my people on _you_.” “I think you might be content with me sometimes,” said Arthur, with an attempt at a smile.