pan, near which I supposed the kitchen was;
but I could not find that very requisite apartment.
Then I went up-stairs to look for it;
but it was not there. Finally I inquired of
workmen on adjoining premises; and learned
that there was no other kitchen than that
same little back parlour, which contained,
I tell the simple truth, no other convenience
for cooking than a small bed-room grate. It
seemed as if it were not large enough for
the boiling of water in any vessel more
capacious than a shaving-pot; and the utmost
range of its roasting powers must have been
the cooking of a herring held before it on
a fork. The builder of those houses knew
what he was about. In each he supplied
accommodation for three sets of lodgers
and one landlady; who, living in that little
parlour, would herself there nurse that little
grate, and thereat cook for them all, and
thereby do for them all and therefrom
wait upon them. Poor woman, I should pity
her more than her victims, if I had never
myself been a lodger. The thought of such
a miserable landlady entering my head in
connexion with my adored Arabella caused
me to escape from the house as if it had been
on fire.

While my search was in this hopeless
condition; and, out of many more than a
hundred houses looked at I had found only
four that might be supposed likely to suit us,
at last Arabella and I took a cab and
visited the four houses of which we had
supposed that one might suit us. Number one
was a light little villa cottage—so very light
that we doubted whether it might not be
blown away from over our heads some winter
night. Number two was a house on a hilltop,
built to be let in unfurnished lodgings,
and therefore provided with a second kitchen
on the first-floor. This house was large-
roomed and airy; but, inasmuch as it was
already held by an army of occupation,
consisting of a large family that covered it with
dirt and litter, my sposa was very much
repelled by its appearance. Number three was
one of a row of compact and respectable little
houses. The rooms were very small; but
we determined that we could, weather
permitting, always keep our doors and windows
open; and, in every other respect, the house
pleased us so entirely that we made up our
minds to take it. On our way to the landlord
we looked in casually at number four,
Mushroom Road; and casually changing our
minds, suddenly took it. It offered us, for
thirty-six pounds rent, six large airy and
wholesome rooms, with as much kitchen
accommodation added as we might, with little
care and contrivance, make to suffice. The
house was cheap; because Aladdin New
Town is not a distinguished neighbourhood,
and the brick-field from which it rises does
not raise the rents of houses round about it
as if it were a park.

Without delay we carried off our property
to Mushroom Road.  Ramparts and bastions
of brick defend all the approaches, and
we are further entrenched behind a chain of
puddles, which are our moats. It once
occurred to us to call our abode Rosamond's
Bower; since its situation is so very mazy
that it can be found only by the help of the
clue I have already given; but, as the house
has a battlemented coping, we have thought
better to call it what it really is, our castle;
and, in expressing that sentiment, we have
been prompted by a natural desire to
strengthen the cement of home by an allusion
to our darling child; we therefore name it
ADELIZA CASTLE. The words are not yet
painted on the stucco at the gate; but they
soon will be; for the landlord himself, an
influential writer and grainer of the
neighbourhood, has promised to emblazon our castle
at the small cost of fourpence per letter.

We had not been long established, before
we discovered that ours is a half-noisy
thoroughfare. Every man who has shifted
much about in London, knows that a half-
noisy thoroughfare is much more excruciating
than a wholly noisy one. Upon the edge of
Oxford Street you may doze as by the margin
of the sea: your ear becomes accustomed
to the uniform roar, and soon almost ceases
to heed it. But a half-noisy thoroughfare
brings every available method of confusing
and distracting human ears to bear upon you;
heightening the effect of every bit of uproar
by a dull setting of silence. Every omnibus
seems to run its wheels over your head;
every new burst of cabs and wagons out of
doors is a new outrage upon the repose
within. Instead of the one noise running
through the day, you have two hundred
noises at two hundred intervals in the day.
When we got baby to sleep after dinner,
there came punctually a series of special
nuisances that had their regular days for
disturbing her; and we came to know their
times. On Monday evenings there was a
horn; after which (separate concern) a German
band; organs; boys whistling "Pop goes
the Weasel." Tuesday, Ethiopian
serenaders; organs; boys whistling "Pop goes
the Weasel." Wednesday, a detached
performer on the bones; a brain-crushing
machine drawn by a donkey—a man on a platform
grinding all our heads in it; other
organs; band of Scotch fiddlers, scraping and
scratching hideous strathspeys with unrosined
horsehair; boys whistling "Pop goes the
Weasel." Thursday, ophicleides, cornopeans,
and trombones; Indian beating tom-tom;
acrobats and two drums; organs; boys whistling
"Pop goes the Weasel." Friday, Ethiopian
serenaders; psalm-singing by an old man
playing the violincello, with two girls in white
tuckers, every two lines first read by the old
man, and then sung by the whole strength of
the company; organs; boys whistling "Pop
goes the Weasel." Saturday, street fights and
shouts; extra carts (butchers' carts very