"With which he slipped in, seeming quite as much at his ease as in the drawing-room, and in another second had squatted upon the floor before our box, where he seemed to be quite as comfortable as in the arm-chair he had left. Here he poked, and fitted, and whistled, and chatted without a pause. "'I've locks and keys to everything I possess' he cheerfully remarked; 'and as I never lock up anything, there's no damage done if the keys are left behind, which is a good thing, you see, as I always leave everything everywhere.' "'Do you make a principle of it?' asked the young lady, coldly. "'I'm afraid I make a practice of it.' He had opened the box, and was leaning against the bed-post, with a roguish twinkle in his brown eyes, which faded, however, under the silent severity of the red-haired young lady, and gave place to a look of melancholy that might have melted granite, as he added: "'I'm all alone, you see, that's what does it. I believe I'm the neatest creature breathing, if I'd only somebody to keep me up to it.' "Neither his hardened untidiness nor his lonely lot seemed, however, to weigh heavily on his mind; for he withdrew whistling, and his notes were heard about the passages for some little time. When they had died away in a distant part of the house, the red-haired young lady left us also. "I shall not give you a lengthened account of our unpacking, dear Ida; though it was as enjoyable, but less protracted than the packing-up had been. How we revelled in the spacious drawers and cupboards, over which we were queens, and how strictly we followed one of our mother's wise counsels--'unpack to the bottom of your box at once, however short your visit may be; it saves time in the end.' We did unpack to the lowest book (an artificial system of memory, which I had long been purposing to study, which I thought to find spare moments to get up here, and which, I may as well confess, I did not look at during the visit, and have not learnt to this day). We divided shelves and pegs with all fairness, and as a final triumph found a use for the elaborate watch-pockets that hung above our pillows. They were rich with an unlimited expenditure of quilled ribbon, and must have given a great deal of trouble to someone who had not very many serious occupations in this life. Fatima and I wished that we had watches to put in them, till the happy thought suddenly struck one of us, that we could keep in them our respective papers of good habits.