ilt an ugly one, is one of the many
things I do not know, and wish I did.

From the old sketches of it which my grandfather painted on the parlour
handscreens, I think it must have been like a larger edition of the
farm; that is, with long mullioned windows, a broad and gracefully
proportioned doorway with several shallow steps and quaintly-ornamented
lintel; bits of fine work and ornamentation about the woodwork here and
there, put in as if they had been done, not for the look of the thing,
but for the love of it, and whitewash over the house-front, and over the
apple-trees in the orchard.

That was what our ancestor's home was like; and it was the sort of house
that became Walnut-tree Academy, where Jem and I went to school.

CHAPTER II.

_Sable_:--"Ha, you! A little more upon the dismal (_forming their
countenances_); this fellow has a good mortal look, place him near
the corpse; that wainscoat face must be o' top of the stairs; that
fellow's almost in a fright (that looks as if he were full of some
strange misery) at the end of the hall. So--but I'll fix you all
myself. Let's have no laughing now on any provocation."--_The
Funeral_, STEELE.

At one time I really hoped to make the acquaintance of the old miser of
Walnut-tree Farm. It was when we saved the life of his cat.

He was very fond of that cat, I think, and it was, to say the least of
it, as eccentric-looking as its master. One eye was yellow and the other
was blue, which gave it a strange, uncanny expression, and its
rust-coloured fur was not common either as to tint or markings.

How dear old Jem did belabour the boy we found torturing it! He was much
older and bigger than we were, but we were two to one, which we reckoned
fair enough, considering his size, and that the cat had to be saved
somehow. The poor thing's forepaws were so much hurt that it could not
walk, so we carried it to the farm, and I stood on the shallow
doorsteps, and under the dial, on which was written--

"Tempora mutantur!"--

and the old miser came out, and we told him about the cat, and he took
it and said we were good boys, and I hoped he would have asked us to go
in, but he did not, though we lingered a little; he only put his hand
into his pocket, and very slowly brought out sixpence.

"No, thank you," said I, rather indignantly. "We don't want anything for
saving the poor cat."

"I am very fond of it," he