alled on a house-agent in Mayfair,
and his son and partner went with them to several places. The rents of
houses equal to that in Harewood Square were three hundred pounds a year
at least, and a premium to boot.

Christopher told him these were quite beyond the mark. "Very well," said
the agent. "Then I'll show you a Bijou."

Rosa clapped her hands. "That is the thing for us. We don't want a large
house, only a beautiful one, and in Mayfair."

"Then the Bijou will be sure to suit you."

He took them to the Bijou.

The Bijou had a small dining-room with one very large window in two
sheets of plate glass, and a projecting balcony full of flowers; a still
smaller library, which opened on a square yard enclosed. Here were a
great many pots, with flowers dead or dying from neglect. On the first
floor a fair-sized drawing-room, and a tiny one at the back: on the
second floor, one good bedroom, and a dressing-room, or little bedroom:
three garrets above.

Rosa was in ecstasies. "It is a nest," said she.

"It is a bank-note," said the agent, stimulating equal enthusiasm, after
his fashion. "You can always sell the lease again for more money."

Christopher kept cool. "I don't want a house to sell, but to live in,
and do my business; I am a physician: now the drawing-room is built over
the entrance to a mews; the back rooms all look into a mews: we shall
have the eternal noise and smell of a mews. My wife's rest will be
broken by the carriages rolling in and out. The hall is fearfully small
and stuffy. The rent is abominably high; and what is the premium for, I
wonder?"

"Always a premium in Mayfair, sir. A lease is property here: the
gentleman is not acquainted with this part, madam."

"Oh, yes, he is," said Rosa, as boldly as a six years' wife: "he knows
everything."

"Then he knows that a house of this kind at a hundred and thirty pounds
a year in Mayfair is a bank-note."

Staines turned to Rosa. "The poor patients, where am I to receive them?"

"In the stable," suggested the house agent.

"Oh!" said Rosa, shocked.

"Well, then, the coach-house. Why, there's plenty of room for a
brougham, and one horse, and fifty poor patients at a time: beggars
musn't be choosers; if you give them physic gratis, that is enough: you
ain't bound to find 'em a palace to sit down in, and hot coffee and rump
steaks all round, doctor."

This tickled Rosa so that she burst out laughing, and thenceforward
giggled at intervals, wi