dreary statues
of Peace, Plenty, Piety and Patriotism, are the only sentinels. You
enter these palaces by back-doors. 'That was the way the Carabases got
their peerage,' the misanthropic Ponto said after dinner.

Well--I rang the bell at a little low side-door; it clanged and jingled
and echoed for a long, long while, till at length a face, as of a
housekeeper, peered through the door, and, as she saw my hand in my
waistcoat pocket, opened it. Unhappy, lonely housekeeper, I thought. Is
Miss Crusoe in her island more solitary? The door clapped to, and I was
in Castle Carabas.

'The side entrance and All,' says the housekeeper. 'The halligator
hover the mantelpiece was brought home by Hadmiral St. Michaels, when
a Capting with Lord Hanson. The harms on the cheers is the harms of the
Carabas family.' The hall was rather comfortable. We went clapping up a
clean stone backstair, and then into a back passage cheerfully decorated
with ragged light-green Kidderminster, and issued upon

'THE GREAT ALL.

'The great all is seventy-two feet in lenth, fifty-six in breath, and
thirty-eight feet 'igh. The carvings of the chimlies, representing the
birth of Venus, and Ercules, and Eyelash, is by Van Chislum, the most
famous sculpture of his hage and country. The ceiling, by Calimanco,
represents Painting, Harchitecture and Music (the naked female figure
with the barrel horgan) introducing George, fust Lord Carabas, to the
Temple of the Muses. The winder ornaments is by Vanderputty. The floor
is Patagonian marble; and the chandelier in the centre was presented to
Lionel, second Marquis, by Lewy the Sixteenth, whose 'ead was cut hoff
in the French Revelation. We now henter

THE SOUTH GALLERY.

'One 'undred and forty-eight in lenth by thirty-two in breath; it is
profusely hornaminted by the choicest works of Hart. Sir Andrew Katz,
founder of the Carabas family and banker of the Prince of Horange,
Kneller. Her present Ladyship, by Lawrence. Lord St. Michaels, by the
same--he is represented sittin' on a rock in velvit pantaloons. Moses in
the bullrushes--the bull very fine, by Paul Potter. The toilet of Venus,
Fantaski. Flemish Bores drinking, Van Ginnums. Jupiter and Europia, de
Horn. The Grandjunction Canal, Venis, by Candleetty; and Italian Bandix,
by Slavata Rosa.'--And so this worthy woman went on, from one room into
another, from the blue room to the green, and the green to the grand
saloon, and the grand saloon to the tapestry