ay in nothings, as no doubt it would have otherwise been. By
the afternoon, when the book-case arrived, he had convinced himself that
it was not only quite reasonable, but a most lucky chance, a thing he
could scarcely have hoped for, the opportunity and the money both coming
in such exact accord with each other. When he returned from his walk the
girls were looking at it, Ursula somewhat scared, Janey in open
raptures.

"It is very nice indeed, papa," said the elder girl; "but it must have
cost a deal of money."

"Be thankful that you haven't got to pay for it," he said, brusquely. He
was not disposed to stand criticism. How it filled up his bare room, and
made it, Mr. May thought, all at once into a library, though the old
writing-table and shabby chairs looked rather worse perhaps than before,
and suggested renewal in the most urgent way. To make it all of a piece,
to put a soft Turkey carpet instead of the drugget, how pleasant it
would be!--not extravagant, only a natural inclination towards the
seemly, and a desire to have things around him becoming his position. No
doubt such things were things which he ought to have in his position; a
gentleman and a scholar, how humiliating it was that nothing but the
barest elements of comfort should be within his reach. This was not how
life ought to be; a poor creature like Clarence Copperhead, without
birth, or breeding, or brains, or anything but money, was able to
gratify every wish, while he--his senior, his superior! Instead of
blaming himself, therefore, for his self-indulgence, Mr. May sympathized
with himself, which is a much less safe thing to do; and accordingly, it
soon began to appear to him that his self-denial all this time in not
giving himself what he wanted had been extreme, and that what he had now
done, in conceding himself so harmless a gratification, was what he
ought to have done years ago. It was his own money sent to him by his
dutiful son without conditions; and who had any right to interfere?

When he was at dinner, Betsy came behind his chair under pretence of
serving him; Betsy, whose place was in the kitchen, who had no right to
show in the dining-room at all, and whose confused toilette had caught
Ursula's eye and filled her with horror.

"Please, sir," she said, breathing hot on Mr. May's ear, till he shrank
with sensitive horror. "Cotsdean's in the kitchen. He says as how he
must see you; and I can't get him away."

"Ah, Cotsdean? tell hi