therefore, that the house would never let; and it would have been
pulled down long ago if the owner had not felt a liking for it, through
memories tender and peculiar to himself. His grandson, having none of
these to contend with, resolved to make a mere stable of it, and build
a public-house at the bottom of the garden, and turn the space between
them into skittle-ground, and so forth.

To me this seemed such a very low idea, and such a desecration of a
sacred spot, that if I had owned any money to be sure of, I would have
offered hundreds to prevent it. But I found myself now in a delicate
state of mind concerning money, having little of my own, and doubting
how much other people might intend for me. So that I durst not offer to
buy land and a house without any means to pay.

And it was not for that reason only that Betsy and I kept ourselves
quiet. We knew that any stir in this little place about us--such as my
name might at once set going--would once for all destroy all hope
of doing good by coming. Betsy knew more of such matters than I did,
besides all her knowledge of the place itself, and her great superiority
of age; therefore I left to her all little management, as was in every
way fair and wise. For Mrs. Strouss had forsaken a large and good
company of lodgers, with only Herr Strouss to look after them--and
who was he among them? If she trod on one side of her foot, or felt a
tingling in her hand, or a buzzing in her ear, she knew in a moment what
it was--of pounds and pounds was she being cheated, a hundred miles off,
by foreigners!

For this reason it had cost much persuasion and many appeals to her
faithfulness, as well as considerable weekly payment, ere ever my good
nurse could be brought away from London; and perhaps even so she never
would have come if I had not written myself to Mrs. Price, then visiting
Betsy in European Square, that if the landlady was too busy to be
spared by her lodgers, I must try to get Lord Castlewood to spare me
his housekeeper. Upon this Mrs. Strouss at once declared that Mrs.
Price would ruin every thing; and rather than that--no matter what she
lost--she herself would go with me. And so she did, and she managed very
well, keeping my name out of sight (for, happen what might, I would have
no false one); and she got quiet lodgings in her present name, which
sounded nicely foreign; and the village being more agitated now about my
father's material house, and the work they we