Sewell had long coveted the suite of rooms known at the Priory as “Miss Lucy's.” They were on the ground-floor; they opened on a small enclosed garden of their own; they had a delicious aspect; and it was a thousand pities they should be consigned to darkness and spiders while he wanted so much a snuggery of his own,--a little territory which could be approached without coming through the great entrance, and where he could receive his familiars, and a variety of other creatures whose externals alone would have denied them admittance to any decent household. Now, although Sir William's letter to Lucy was the sort of document which, admitting no species of reply, usually closes a correspondence, Sewell had not courage to ask the Chief for the rooms in question. It would be too like peremptory action to be prudent. It might lead the old man to reconsider his judgment. Who knows what tender memories the thought might call up? Indeed, as Sewell himself remembered, he had seen fellows in India show great emotion at the sale of a comrade's kit, though they had read the news of his death with comparative composure. “If the old fellow were to toddle in here, and see her chair and her writing-table and her easel, it might undo everything,” said he; so that he wisely resolved it would be better to occupy the premises without a title than endeavor to obtain them legitimately. By a slight effort of diplomacy with Mrs. Beales, he obtained possession of the key, and as speedily installed himself in occupancy. Indeed, when the venerable housekeeper came round to see what the Colonel could possibly want to do with the rooms, she scarcely recognized them. A pipe-rack covered one wall, furnished with every imaginable engine for smoke; a stand for rifles and fowling-pieces occupied a corner; some select prints of Derby winners and ballet celebrities were scattered about; while a small African monkey, of that color they call green, sat in a small arm-chair, of his own, near the window, apparently sunk in deep reflection. This creature, whom his master called Dundas--I am unable to say after what other representative of the name--was gifted with an instinctive appreciation of duns, and flew at the man who presented a bill as unerringly as ever a bull rushed at the bearer of a red rag.