ake 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 Noeringen. 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.

The accidental mistake about the hotel first suggested the offer, which
of course the next day was sure to obviate. And now, as it has so often
been an unpleasant task to record little flaws and frailties of the
Rickettses' nature, let us take the opportunity of mentioning some
traits of an opposite kind, which, even as a "set-off," are not
valueless. Nothing could be more truly amiable than the conduct of the
whole family when the question of their stay had been resolved upon. Had
Scroope been bred a cabinet-maker, he could n't have been handier with
bed-screws, laths, and curtain-rods. Martha, divested of shawl and
bonnet, arranged