come to me, my cup of joy was full. It was
wrapped in many folds, and was in a very
loose and dilapidated condition; its few
leaves being all sadly frayed and
moth-eaten. So it had to be handled with
extraordinary delicacy and tenderness. The
colour was of a deep brown, and each leaf
chipped off in fragments at the touch. Never
shall I forget the rich mouldy fragrance that
exhaled from it: I sniffed it as though it
had been purest otto.

"I will treat him like a prince," I said
aloud, "he shall have the best of everything.
I shall have the house done up and
cleaned down, and made as neat as a new
pin."

I rubbed my hands together in delicious
anticipation.

"And who do you suppose is to go a-slaving
of herself, a-cleaniug up and doing down of
a house for evermore?" said a hoarse voice
from outside the door. "Fine times we're
coming to! A poor overworked creature
as it is, to be set to such doings, without so
much as thought of chars! Like enough,
indeed." And then the hoarse voice passed
on down the stairs, until the sounds were lost
in the distance.

She had her chars in to satiety even.
I did not order them, or even think of
them, or propose their coming. They came
in defiance of me, and filled the house in a
flood! Their wash-tubs were as eternal
pitfalls and stumbling-blocks. I met those
ladies in every quarter; strange dishevelled
creatures with unkempt locks and ragged
draperies. They imparted a dampness to the
air, and I thought the stairs would never dry.
Mrs. Swipclin sat all day in the kitchen,
and thus superintended the operations. I
shunned meeting her, and used to slip back
into my room when I heard her step on the
stairs, regarding her much as the person in
the novel did the horrible monster he had
created! She was mistress of the house, and
did precisely as she liked. I was given over
to her, body and soul.

"Beautiful it looks now! " she said,
admiringly, as I came in late on the evening
when the operations had at last concluded;
"but go up, my sweet sir, go up-stairs, and
see what poor Suzy can think of for you.
Such a little surprise. But I won't tell him,
no no!" (words addressed to wild
char-women drawn up behind her.)

A surprise? My eyes lighted up with
sudden pleasure. Had Doctor Kitely arrived,
I asked, eagerly.

"No, no," said Mrs. Swipclin, still smiling;
"go up and let it see for itself, and say its
Suzy is not all so bad as they make her out."

With a sense as of something terrible
over-shadowing me, I bounded up-stairs, the wild
army of chars following behind with
uncontrolled manifestations of delight, and, for a
moment, stood at my own door, scarcely
daring to look in.

I nearly fainted with the shock. I was
spinning round (as I was told afterwards)
for the next few minutes, like a top. Rage,
frenzy and grief, fluctuated in my breast
with a terrible power. I was as one
distraught, as one fit to be tied. And what
wonder? For there, before my eyes lay the
wreck of everything that was dear to me in
the world. My own, my beautiful! my sanctum
of sanctums! my Arab steed! my
turquoise that I would not have parted with for
a wilderness of monkeys,—lay rifled, stripped,
and bare before me. Quite naked, not one
left! The floor cleared, the desks lightened,
the papers spoliated, and the books carted
away (I suppose). Heavy folios, left open
at particular passages, which had taken me
weeks to hunt up, were now closed for ever
and gone no one knew whither. Some of
the smaller ones I could make out afar-off,
lying in confused masses at the very top of
the shelves, some shut, some open, their
backs broken irretrievably by the
superincumbent mass. But my papers, my precious
papers, and (a cold sweat here broke out on
my forehead) the priceless copy, the matchless
editio princeps of Doctor Kitely, I did
not see it!

"The G-g-g-old-en A-a-ass!" I faintly
murmured.

"Ah! get along," Mrs. Swipclin said, with
strong disgust; "what do ye mean with
your gold and your asses! Look about
you, man, and tell Suzy how you like her
work."

"Wretched woman," I exclaimed, seizing
her by the arm, being of a sudden endued
with a supernatural strength and courage;
"tell me what you have done with it, the
book; the precious quarto."

I shook her dreadfully, but in an instant
she was free; my poor puny muscles being
no match for her giant proportions.

"Be quiet with ye," she said, roughly;
"what quarters do you want? Precious
volumes, indeed! Is it Testament, or Bible,
or what?"

"No, no," I said, frantically, "the book,
the old book that was on my desk; the choice
exemplar, the editio rarissima, marked with
three R's in the catalogues."

A sort of Indian char squaw, stepping
from the rear, here spoke in the dialect of
her country. "It moight be thin and mowldy
loike?"

"Yes, yes," I said, eagerly adapting
myself to the strange pronunciation. "It was
mowldy; you are right, indeed."

"Whoy," says the savage lady, "Oi see
such thing up-stair loike in corner. Whoy!
Oi light foire wie't."

I gave a shriek and rushed at her. She
fled up-stairs, and soon brought down to me
a sort of wretched wisp—the few remaining
leaves of the precious quarto! All that was
left! What was I to do? Whither flee?
How escape the wrath of avenging Kitely?