“What easier, if it's in earnest you are?” cried Dalton. “We never make use of this little drawing-room. Nelly will get you a bed put up in five minutes.” “Is n't that Irish, Scroope?--is n't that what I often told you of Ireland?” cried Zoe, as her eyes glistened. “Well, but I'm not joking,” resumed Dalton; “small as the place is, we can make room for you all. We 'll put Miss Martha in Nelly's room, and the General can have mine; and there's a mighty snug tittle place for you in the garden.” “Oh, dear, dear, dear Ireland, how I love you!” said Mrs. Ricketts, closing her eyes, and affecting to talk in her sleep. “There's worse places,” murmured Dalton, who drank in national flattery as the pleasantest “tipple” after personal. “But say the word, now, and see if we won't make you comfortable.” “Comfortable!----you mean happy, supremely happy,” ejaculated Zoe. “And there's no inconvenience in it, none whatever,” continued Dalton, who now was breast-high in his plot. “That's a fine thing in this little town of Baden; you can have everything at a moment's warning, from a sirloin of beef to a strait-waistcoat.” Now Mrs. Ricketts laughed till her eyes overflowed with tears, at Dalton's drollery; and Scroope, too, cackled his own peculiar cry; and the old General chimed in with a faint wheezing sound,--a cross between the wail of an infant and a death-rattle; in the midst of which Dalton hurried away to seek Nelly, who was showing the garden to Martha. “Now, mind me, Scroope,” cried Mrs. Ricketts, as soon as they were alone; “no selfishness, no eternal trouble about your own comfort. We may probably pass the summer here, and--” “But I--I----I won't sleep under the stairs, I--I----I promise you,” cried he, angrily. “You had a dear little room, with a lovely view, at Noëringen. You are most ungrateful.” “It was a d-d ear little room, six feet sqnare, and looked ont on a tannery. My skin would have been leather if I had st-st-stayed another week in it.” “Martha slept in a wardrobe, and never complained.” “For that matter, I passed two months in a sh-shower-bath,” cried Scroope; “but I--I won't do it a-any more.” To what excesses his rebellious spirit might have carried him it is hard to say, for Dalton now came up with Nelly, who was no less eager than her father to offer the hospitalities of the villa. At the hazard of detracting in the reader's esteem from all this generous liberality, we feel bound to add that neither Dalton nor his daughter ever speculated on the lengthened sojourn which Mrs. Ricketts's more prophetic spirit foreshadowed.