scheme. A plan of the Banded Brothers'
Estate was laid upon the table, after the
tea-things were removed; and it looked, to
me, very much like a large chess-board. Mr.
Gasper pointed to little square patches upon
the paper, and told us how five shares
purchased one patch, ten shares another patch, and
fifteen shares a third; how A was a church,
and B a dissenting chapel, C a projected park,
D a row of shops, E an Artesian well of the
purest spring water; how the broad lines
were roads, the narrow line along the top
the railway, and another line, close to it, the
canal; and how the whole was twenty miles
from London, in a salubrious part of a
southern county, perfectly sheltered from the
north winds, and to be reached in one hour
by the railway. Then with regard to the
financial system of the society, he told us
how rent became capital, and the more we
paid, the richer we became; how interest
charged to the fathers was a benefit to the
children; how every time we painted a
water-butt, we added a value to the
heirlooms of our family; how the old snarling
relations of landlord and tenant, creditor
and debtor, were utterly destroyed, to be
replaced by a mutual-advantage state of
existence. Then he drew a glowing picture
of the toil-worn clerk, flying every evening
from his city labour on the wings of steam
to his happy country retreat, proud in
the consciousness of being a free and
independent burgess, who had by prudence and
co-operation wrenched an acre of his birthright
from the grasping usurpation of the
aristocracy. Such was the discourse of Mr.
Gasper until a late hour of the evening. His
advocacy had no effect upon me, although it
was conclusive with my husband, and I set
my face resolutely against becoming a
freeholder in the Banded Brothers' Estate.

Some few days after Mr. Gasper's visit, I
was attacked with a severe illness, which
lasted for some weeks. When I recovered, I
was ordered to Worthing for the benefit of
one or two months' sea-air. Mr. Popjoy came
down every Saturday evening, and stayed
until Monday morning. His mind still ran
upon the idea of becoming a small freeholder
—for he talked of little else during his visits.
He enlarged very much upon the permanent
benefit I should derive from a southern air;
and he backed his arguments with a
corroborative letter from my doctor, which I am
compelled to believe he had obtained by
connivance. I saw that there was little chance
of domestic peace unless I consented to
become a Banded Sister of Freedom, and, in a
moment of bodily weakness, I gave him
authority to sell out one hundred pounds of
stock, and invest the money in any form he
desired. I had a very slight hope that the
Banded Brothers' Estate might turn out
better than I had expected.

I had no hand in the moving—that was
agreed between us—Mr. Popjoy gladly
superintending the whole of the arrangements.
What things were broken, what things were
lost, what the dear children suffered, is more
than I need tell. My poor sister (she is now
dead and gone) who came up from the country
to assist my husband, told me afterwards
she had seen many movings in her time, but
nothing to equal this. It was worse than
government emigration. It took them from
six o'clock in the morning until eight o'clock
at night to reach the Freehold Society's
settlement. There were three vans and six men,
who did just as they thought proper with Mr.
Popjoy, stopping at every roadside ale-house,
until at last they got almost unmanageable.
The way they threw the things from the van
into the road was awful and heartrending;
and my poor sister said it was a mercy
that everything was not shivered to atoms.
As it was, the loo-table, which poor mother
gave me when I was married, was so injured
that it would never stand upright again; and
her portrait in oil, painted by a gentleman
who might have been a Royal Academician
if he had thought proper, had the legs of a
kitchen-chair thrust through its face and
neck in no less than three places.

At last the place was got into what Mr.
Popjoy considered something like order; and
I left Worthing to return to my new home.
It was late at night when I arrived, and very
dark, and I noticed nothing until I reached
the house, carefully guided by my husband.

"My dear," said Mr. Popjoy, "I am afraid
you will not find the place everything you
could wish; but Rome, you know, was not
built in a day."

I did not like the tone of this remark. It
foreboded no good; but I made a cheerful
reply, without leading him to suppose that I
suspected anything.

When I entered our dwelling I noticed a
smell of earth, damp mortar, and new wood,
and I thought I saw traces of shavings in the
passage. Further acquaintance with the
premises showed me many other shortcomings
and peculiarities. There were no banisters up
the stairs, and no paper upon the walls; which
were ornamented with fantastic figures
formed by the wet upon the plaster. The
children's bedroom and nursery were like
stable-lofts, and the roof was only lathed
over, without a ceiling. Luckily the weather
had been fine and dry for several weeks, or
the poor creatures might have been washed
down the stairs. The back parlour was closed
up; and, for some time, Mr. Popjoy hesitated
when I spoke to him about this apartment.
At last he admitted that it was in a very
unfinished state. In fact it had scarcely been
commenced; there was nothing but a brick
skeleton; there was no window, the hole
being boarded over; and there was no floor.,
but a deep gulf half tilled with rubbish, which,
when cleared out, would form a very
commodious back-kitchen. Mr. Popjoy had
prudently nailed up the door in the passage,