fire; the second bore an inverted
arm-chair on his head; the third tottered under a heavy load of books;
while Morgan came last, with his canister of tobacco in his hand, his
dressing-gown over his shoulders, and his whole collection of pipes
hugged up together in a bundle under his arm.

"What on earth does this mean?" I inquired.

"It means taking Time by the forelock," answered Morgan, looking at me
with a smile of sour satisfaction. "I've got the start of your young
woman, Griffith, and I'm making the most of it."

"But where, in Heaven's name, are you going?" I asked, as the head man
of the procession disappeared with his firing up the staircase.

"How high is this tower?" retorted Morgan.

"Seven stories, to be sure," I replied.

"Very good," said my eccentric brother, setting his foot on the first
stair, "I'm going up to the seventh."

"You can't," I shouted.

"_She_ can't, you mean," said Morgan, "and that's exactly why I'm going
there."

"But the room is not furnished."

"It's out of her reach."

"One of the windows has fallen to pieces."

"It's out of her reach."

"There's a crow's nest in the corner."

"It's out of her reach."

By the time this unanswerable argument had attained its third
repetition, Morgan, in his turn, had disappeared up the winding stairs.
I knew him too well to attempt any further protest.

Here was my first difficulty smoothed away most unexpectedly; for here
were the rooms in the lean-to placed by their owner's free act and
deed at my disposal. I wrote on the spot to the one upholsterer of our
distant county town to come immediately and survey the premises,
and sent off a mounted messenger with the letter. This done, and the
necessary order also dispatched to the carpenter and glazier to set them
at work on Morgan's sky-parlor in the seventh story, I began to feel,
for the first time, as if my scattered wits were coming back to me.
By the time the evening had closed in I had hit on no less than three
excellent ideas, all providing for the future comfort and amusement of
our fair guest. The first idea was to get her a Welsh pony; the second
was to hire a piano from the county town; the third was to send for a
boxful of novels from London. I must confess I thought these projects
for pleasing her very happily conceived, and Owen agreed with me.
Morgan, as usual, took the opposite view. He said she would yawn over
the novels, turn up her nose at the piano, and fracture