new
people. Three years ago I should have been quite sure that I should
love a new cousin. It would have been like having a new dress. But
I've come to think that an old dress is the most comfortable, and an
old cousin certainly the best."

The squire had taken for them a gloomy lodging in Sackville Street.
Lodgings in London are always gloomy. Gloomy colours wear better than
bright ones for curtains and carpets, and the keepers of lodgings
in London seem to think that a certain dinginess of appearance is
respectable. I never saw a London lodging in which any attempt at
cheerfulness had been made, and I do not think that any such attempt,
if made, would pay. The lodging-seeker would be frightened and
dismayed, and would unconsciously be led to fancy that something
was wrong. Ideas of burglars and improper persons would present
themselves. This is so certainly the case that I doubt whether any
well-conditioned lodging-house matron could be induced to show
rooms that were prettily draped or pleasantly coloured. The big
drawing-room and two large bedrooms which the squire took, were all
that was proper, and were as brown, and as gloomy, and as ill-suited
for the comforts of ordinary life as though they had been prepared
for two prisoners. But Lily was not so ignorant as to expect cheerful
lodgings in London, and was satisfied. "And what are we to do now?"
said Lily, as soon as they found themselves settled. It was still
March, and whatever may have been the nature of the weather at
Allington, it was very cold in London. They reached Sackville Street
about five in the evening, and an hour was taken up in unpacking
their trunks and making themselves as comfortable as their
circumstances allowed. "And now what are we to do now?" said Lily.

"I told them to have dinner for us at half-past six."

"And what after that? Won't Bernard come to us to-night? I expected
him to be standing on the door-steps waiting for us with his bride in
his hand."

"I don't suppose Bernard will be here to-night," said the squire. "He
did not say that he would, and as for Miss Dunstable, I promised to
take you to her aunt's house to-morrow."

"But I wanted to see her to-night. Well;--of course bridesmaids
must wait upon brides. And ladies with twenty thousand pounds can't
be expected to run about like common people. As for Bernard,--but
Bernard never was in a hurry." Then they dined, and when the squire
had very nearly fallen asleep over a bo