cious and lofty room, but obscurely lighted by the old-fashioned
windows, the ceiling, panels, and chimney-piece of grim black oak--the
latter elaborately but not very tastefully carved,--with tables and
chairs to match, an old bookcase on one side of the fire-place, stocked
with a motley assemblage of books, and an elderly cabinet piano on the
other.

The lady was seated in a stiff, high-backed arm-chair, with a small round
table, containing a desk and a work-basket on one side of her, and her
little boy on the other, who stood leaning his elbow on her knee, and
reading to her, with wonderful fluency, from a small volume that lay in
her lap; while she rested her hand on his shoulder, and abstractedly
played with the long, wavy curls that fell on his ivory neck. They
struck me as forming a pleasing contrast to all the surrounding objects;
but of course their position was immediately changed on our entrance. I
could only observe the picture during the few brief seconds that Rachel
held the door for our admittance.

I do not think Mrs. Graham was particularly delighted to see us: there
was something indescribably chilly in her quiet, calm civility; but I did
not talk much to her. Seating myself near the window, a little back from
the circle, I called Arthur to me, and he and I and Sancho amused
ourselves very pleasantly together, while the two young ladies baited his
mother with small talk, and Fergus sat opposite with his legs crossed and
his hands in his breeches-pockets, leaning back in his chair, and staring
now up at the ceiling, now straight forward at his hostess (in a manner
that made me strongly inclined to kick him out of the room), now
whistling sotto voce to himself a snatch of a favourite air, now
interrupting the conversation, or filling up a pause (as the case might
be) with some most impertinent question or remark. At one time it
was,--'It, amazes me, Mrs. Graham, how you could choose such a
dilapidated, rickety old place as this to live in. If you couldn't
afford to occupy the whole house, and have it mended up, why couldn't you
take a neat little cottage?'

'Perhaps I was too proud, Mr. Fergus,' replied she, smiling; 'perhaps I
took a particular fancy for this romantic, old-fashioned place--but,
indeed, it has many advantages over a cottage--in the first place, you
see, the rooms are larger and more airy; in the second place, the
unoccupied apartments, which I don't pay for, may serve as lumber-ro