barren bachelor, should live in such
a large house. It is a palace; but never was there a greater mistake
than to seek the solution in our pride. Silence can be had but in a
large house. And silence is the chief condition of home happiness. We
could now hear a leaf fall--a leaf of the finest wire-wove. Peter and
Betty, Polly and the rest, inhabit the second sunk story--and it is
delightful to know that they may be kicking up the most infernal
disturbance at this blessed moment, and tearing out each other's hair in
handfuls, without the faintest whisper of the uproar reaching us in our
altitude above the drawing-room flat. On New-Year's Day morning there is
regularly a competition of bagpipers in the kitchen, and we could fondly
imagine 'tis an Eolian Harp. In his pantry Peter practised for years on
the shrill clarion, and for years on the echoing horn; yet had he thrown
up both instruments in despair of perfection ere we so much as knew that
he had commenced his musical studies. In the sunk story, immediately
below _that_, having been for a season consumptive, we kept a Jenny ass
and her daughter--and though we believe it was not unheard around Moray
and Ainslie Places, and even in Charlotte Square, we cannot charge our
memory with an audit of their bray. In the sunk story immediately below
that again, that distinguished officer on half-pay, Captain Campbell of
the Highlanders--when on a visit to us for a year or two--though we
seldom saw him--got up a _Sma' still_--and though a more harmless
creature could not be, there he used to sit for hours together, with the
worm that never dies. On one occasion, it having been supposed by Peter
that the Captain had gone to the East Neuk of Fife, weeks elapsed, we
remember, ere he was found sitting dead, just as if he had been alive,
in his usual attitude in his arm-chair, commanding a view of the
precipice of the back court.

Just as quiet are the Attics. They, too, are furnished; for the feeling
of there being one unfurnished room, however small, in the largest
house, disturbs the entire state of mind of such an occupant, and when
cherished and dwelt on, which it must not unfrequently be, inspires a
cold air of desolation throughout the domicile, till "thoughts of
flitting rise." There is no lumber-room. The room containing
Blue-Beard's murdered wives might in idea be entered without distraction
by a bold mind.--But oh! the lumber-room, into which, on an early walk
through the h