ormous footmen laden with coffee and cream,
etc., and through the other Johnson and another powdered monster bearing
cognac and other liquors. And there was Augusta with Eustace's arm round
her, absolutely too paralysed to stir. Just as the men came up she got
away somehow, and stood looking like an idiot, while Eustace coloured to
his eyes. Indeed, the only people who showed no confusion were those
magnificent menials, who never turned a single powdered hair, but went
through their solemn rites with perfectly unabashed countenances.

"I can't stand this," said Augusta, feebly, when they had at length
departed. "I am going to bed; I feel quite faint."

"All right," said Eustace, "I think that it is the best thing to do in
this comfortless shop. Confound that fellow, Short, why couldn't he come
and dine? I wonder if there is any place where one could go to smoke a
pipe, or rather a cigar--I suppose those fellows would despise me if I
smoked a pipe? There was no smoking allowed here in my uncle's time, so I
used to smoke in the house-keeper's room; but I can't do that now"--

"Why don't you smoke here?--the room is so big it would not smell,"
said Augusta.

"Oh, hang it all, no," said Eustace; "think of the velvet curtains! I
can't sit and smoke by myself in a room fifty feet by thirty; I should
get the blues. No, I shall come upstairs, too, and smoke there"--

And he did.

Early, very early in the morning, Augusta woke, got up, and put on a
dressing-gown.

The light was streaming through the rich gold cloth curtains, some of
which she had drawn. It lit upon the ewers, made of solid silver, on the
fine lace hangings of the bed, and the priceless inlaid furniture, and
played round the faces of the cupids on the frescoed ceiling. Augusta
stared at it all and then thought of the late master of this untold
magnificence as he lay dying in the miserable hut in Kerguelen Land. What
a contrast was here!

"Eustace," she said to her sleeping spouse, "wake up, I want to say
something to you."

"Eh! what's the matter?" said Eustace, yawning.

"Eustace, we are too rich--we ought to do something with all this money."

"All right," said Eustace, "I'm agreeable. What do you want to do?"

"I want to give away a good sum--say, two hundred thousand, that
isn't much out of all you have--to found an institution for
broken-down authors."

"All right," said Eustace; "only you must see about it, I can't be
bothered. By-the-way,"