a lot of low rooms, and intricate
passages, and chambers here and there, smelling of apples, and a huge
kitchen, and an oven big enough for a small dinner-party."

"I should like the oven."

"And a laundry, and a dairy, and a cheese-house,--only we never make
any cheese; and a horse-pond, and a dung-hill, and a cabbage-garden."

"Is that all you can say for your new purchase, Mr. Newton?"

"The house itself isn't ugly."

"Come;--that's better."

"And it might be made fairly comfortable, if there were any use in
doing it."

"Of course there will be use."

"I don't know that there will," said Ralph. "Sometimes I think one
thing, and sometimes another. One week I'm full of a scheme about a
new garden and a conservatory, and a bow-window to the drawing-room;
and then, the next week, I think that the two rooms I live in at
present will be enough for me."

"Stick to the conservatory, Mr. Newton. But here are the girls, and I
suppose it is about time for us to go."

"Mary, where have you been?" said Clarissa.

"Looking at landscapes," said Mary.

"Mr. Newton has shown us every picture worth seeing, and described
everything, and we haven't had to look at the catalogue once. That's
just what I like at the Academy. I don't know whether you've been as
lucky."

"I've had a great deal described to me too," said Mary; "but I'm
afraid we've forgotten the particular duty that brought us here."
Then they parted, the two men promising that they would be at the
villa before long, and the girls preparing themselves for their
return home.

"That cousin of theirs is certainly very beautiful," said Gregory,
after some short tribute to the merits of the two sisters.

"I think she is," said Ralph.

"I do not wonder that my brother has been struck with her."

"Nor do I." Then after a pause he continued; "She said something
which made me think that she and your brother haven't quite hit it
off together."

"I don't know that they have," said Gregory. "Ralph does change his
mind sometimes. He hasn't said a word about her to me lately."

CHAPTER L.

ANOTHER FAILURE.

The day after the meeting at the Academy, as Ralph, the young Squire,
was sitting alone in his room over a late breakfast, a maid-servant
belonging to the house opened the door and introduced Mr. Neefit.
It was now the middle of May, and Ralph had seen nothing of the
breeches-maker since the morning on which he had made his appearance
in the yard of