age as to
be almost black. Altogether this piece of furniture was so grand that
words cannot fully describe it, and it stood so high on its carved legs
that Mrs Gaff and Tottie were obliged to climb into it each night by a
flight of three steps, which were richly carpeted, and which folded into
a square box, which was extremely convenient as a seat or ottoman during
the day, and quite in keeping with the rest of the furniture of the
"boodwar."

In addition to all these beautiful and expensive articles, Mrs Gaff
displayed her love for the fine arts in the selection and purchase of
four engravings in black frames with gold slips, one for each wall of
the cottage. The largest of these was the portrait of a first-rate
line-of-battle ship in full sail, with the yards manned, and dressed
from deck to trucks with all the flags of the navy. Another was a head
of Lord Nelson, said to be a speaking likeness!

This head had the astonishing property of always looking at you, no
matter what part of the room you looked at it from! Tottie had
expressed a wish that it might be hung opposite the new clock, in order
that it might have something, as it were, to look at; but although the
eyes looked straight out of the picture, they refused to look at the
clock, and pertinaciously looked at living beings instead. Mrs Gaff
asserted that it had a squint, and that it was really looking at the
Dutch clock, and on going to the corner where that timepiece stood she
found that Lord Nelson _was_ gazing in that direction! But Tottie, who
went to the opposite corner of the room, roundly asseverated that the
head looked at _her_.

There was no getting over this difficulty, so Mrs Gaff gave it up as an
unsolvable riddle; but Tottie, who was fond of riddles, pondered the
matter, and at length came to the conclusion that as Lord Nelson was a
great man, it must be because of his greatness that he could look in two
directions at the same moment.

Mrs Gaff furthermore displayed her taste for articles of _vertu_ in her
selection of chimney-piece ornaments. She had completely covered every
inch of available space with shells of a brilliant and foreign aspect,
and articles of chinaware, such as parrots and shepherds, besides
various creatures which the designer had evidently failed to represent
correctly, as they resembled none of the known animals of modern times.

From this abode of elegance and luxury Mrs Gaff issued one forenoon in
her gay c