“I never heard my father speak even of one in London or elsewhere,” returned Flora. “We have lived very secluded while here. We have not always lived thus. I can remember dwelling in a large house, with beautiful furniture, mirrors, chandeliers, and gorgeous decorations; lovely gardens, with fountains and flowers. But that is long, long ago. I know not when, I know not why, we left it, or when or how we came here. It seems to me that I awakened from a dream of faëryland, to find myself in these poor apartments, and my poor father destroying his life by the deadly closeness of his application to his labour.” “You know, then, of no relations you could ask to help you?” said Lotte. “None,” replied Flora. “Nor friends whose assistance you might ask?” Flora shook her head. “Have you any money to go on with?” “A little, which for safety is placed”---- “Where I want to know nothing about it,” interposed Mr. Nutty, abruptly. “See here--when I put down in my hin-vent-ory any harticle, you daren’t touch it arterwards; leastwise, you must give it up as I’ve put it down; but you know you can do as you like with anything as I don’t put down. Do you tumble?” Mr. Nutty, having rather a mean opinion of the worldly experience of Flora, addressed his speech to Lotte, but that young lady, who had a shrewd guess at the intention sought to be conveyed in the first speech, did not comprehend quite clearly the last sentence, unless, as she conceived, the man had a notion that her professional avocation was dancing on horseback and leaping through hoops or over poles, held by colonels in the army of the Emperor of the Brazils. She, therefore, thanked him for the suggestion he offered, but at the same time mystified him by informing him that she had never been on horseback in her life. In a few whispers she made Flora understand Nutty’s meaning, and suggested that if there happened to be any article to which she attached any particular value, now was the time to transfer it to a place of safety, beyond the jurisdiction of Mr. Nutty. Flora hesitated to avail herself of the offer--not so Lotte. “There is my room,” she said; “no one can enter it unless I please: I have the key. You can put anything you like within it; and I should like to see any one dare to come in and attempt to take it out.” Still Flora hesitated. “These people seem to have the power to take all,” she observed, “and if they are justly entitled to their claim, it would be an act of dishonesty to keep anything back from them.” “Fiddle-de-dee, dear!” exclaimed Lotte. “You don’t know that they are justly entitled, and therefore you have the right to assume that they are not. They act, at all events, like hard-hearted brutes, and that is why _I_ believe they have no more right to a single thing here than I have. So I should act just as if they had not. Now I will tell you what my advice is. You point out to me what you, in your heart, should like to save, and leave the rest to me.”