you dislike my taste, Ned?--To my eye, now, the structure has no
bad appearance from this spot!"

"Fitness and comfort are indispensable requisites for domestic
architecture, to use your own argument. Are you quite sure that
yonder castellated roof, for instance, is quite suited to the deep
snows of these mountains?"

John Effingham whistled, and endeavoured to look unconcerned, for he
well knew that the very first winter had demonstrated the
unsuitableness of his plans for such a climate. He had actually felt
disposed to cause the whole to be altered privately, at his own
expense; but, besides feeling certain his cousin would resent a
liberty that inferred his indisposition to pay for his own buildings,
he had a reluctance to admit, in the face of the whole country, that
he had made so capital a mistake, in a branch of art in which he
prided himself rather more than common; almost as much as his
predecessor in the occupation, Mr. Richard Jones.

"If you are not pleased with your own dwelling, Ned," he answered,
"you can have, at least, the consolation of looking at some of your
neighbours' houses, and of perceiving that they are a great deal
worse off. Of all abortions of this sort, to my taste, a Grecian
abortion is the worst--mine is only Gothic, and that too, in a style
so modest, that I should think it might pass unmolested."

It was so unusual to see John Effingham on the defensive, that the
whole party smiled, while Aristabulus who stood in salutary fear of
his caustic tongue, both smiled and wondered.

"Nay, do not mistake me, John," returned the proprietor of the
edifice under discussion--"it is not your _taste_ that I call in
question, but your provision against the seasons. In the way of mere
outward show, I really think you deserve high praise, for you have
transformed a very ugly dwelling into one that is almost handsome, in
despite of proportions and the necessity of regulating the
alterations by prescribed limits. Still, I think, there is a little
of the composite left about even the exterior."

"I hope, cousin Jack, you have not innovated on the interior," cried
Eve; "for I think I shall remember that, and nothing is more pleasant
than the _cattism_ of seeing objects that you remember in childhood--
pleasant, I mean, to those whom the mania of mutation has not
affected."

"Do not be alarmed, Miss Effingham," replied her kinsman, with a
pettishness of manner that was altogether extraordinary, in