house. Presently we stopped with a prolonged
jerk, and our driver having turned his
horses at right angles to the carriage, in order to
prevent our rolling backwards down the steepest
of hills, pointed to a long row of windows with
the "To Let" indications we were seeking.
Similar preliminaries were gone through as
before, with the same result, only that this
time our friends the beggars found us out.
These had quite a new array of peculiarities,
and there was a combination system at work
among them, by which two established the
exact complement of limbs and features usually
bestowed on one. For instance, a boy with no
legs was perched on the back of a blind man,
whom he worked on the principle of a velocipede.
This amalgamation appeared to give them a
power of ubiquity, and wherever we stopped
we found our velocipede friends there before us.
For more than a week we continued our
search with a contented spirit which made
us say, "To-day we must be more lucky."
At last we fell in with a charitable friend, who
offered to accompany us and act as interpreter;
but this was not the only help he rendered us.
He had heard of a house in a good situation, with
large rooms and a few fireplaces; in short,
luxuries such as we had ceased to think existed in
Lisbon. To this palace we drove, and found
it all it had been described, and all it
claimed to be, for it called itself "Palacio
Antigo del Conde de——," and certainly no
one could have doubted its antiquity, that might
have failed to discover it was a palace. The
paper was falling from the walls, the windows
would not shut, and the few doors which could
claim superiority in that respect over the
windows, would not open. However, the plan of
the house was good, and the thought of a fire
at Christmas was so cheering that we begged
our interpreter to explain to the landlord that,
if he would put it into habitable repair, we
would become his tenants. Hereupon he began
a perfect fire of argument in praise of his house,
and dilated at immense length on each of its real
and supposed advantages, until he at last arrived
at his voluble peroration: which was
simply to the effect that he would do nothing.

Some smaller incidents of our wanderings I
will not mention—such as coming out of a
house to find our driver asleep at the bottom
of the carriage with his head on the cushions,
the result of our conveying home a large stock
of the finest fleas. Neither will I enlarge upon
the ignominious circumstance of our being
more than once followed by half a dozen street
curs barking at our heels.

A fortnight of this life, and we were humbled.
Our British spirit of incredulity was nearly
crushed, and we were willing, not only to hear
advice, but to take it. The advice was, " Give
it up now. In a few months the half-yearly
general move will take place, and you will
have a much wider choice." Thus we found
what we wanted. We left Lisbon, and forgot
dirty houses, smells, and insects, amid the lovely
scenery of Cintra. Once comfortably settled
there, we received from one of the friends who
had been most active in helping us, a letter to
the effect that a charming house in Lisbon was
vacant; and we pounced upon it.

When we are asked, " How did you get this
beautiful house?" our answer is not one which
would do for the general guidance of
unfortunates in the trying position of house-hunting
in Lisbon. " By taking no trouble, and trusting
to the chapter of accidents to find for us what
no industry on our part could discover."

   THE SKELETON IN THE CLOSET.

So many of our circle lost money in the panic
of Black Friday, that it was like being out of
the fashion not to have lost, and we were in it—
in it to the extreme. It put off Emmy's wedding,
and there were a few days when I thought
it would put an end to it; but the young people
determined otherwise, got married on their
hopes, youth, and courage, and went away in
August to make the best of the world at the
other side of it. Our London establishment
was finally broken up, and after some inquiry
for a cheap neighbourhood where good education
was to be had for boys, we travelled down
into Shropshire, and thought ourselves fallen
quite in luck's way when we found Ash Grange,
a roomy house in a large garden, not ten minutes'
walk from the grammar school, to let for the very
moderate rental of thirty pounds.

The easy adaptability of common human
nature to altered circumstances is wonderful
and merciful! Here was my John, who had
toiled and moiled from youth to grey hairs to get
rich honestly, who had contemplated withdrawing
from business with his tens of thousands,
and had retired with a few hundreds snatched out
of the fire, looking, after a month of country life,
healthier and happier than I had seen him look
for years. The worst was come, and we were
not utterly beggars; we had suffered shipwreck,
but we had got safe to land; we had lost an
immense fortune, but we had not lost character,
nor caused the ruin of others; we had come
down to our primitive condition of neither riches
nor poverty, and I think I liked it better than
the vanity and vexation of spirit that had attended
our gradual rise and progress in London society.
Emmy was gone, but she had taken her heart's
desire with her, and we had the three boys left
for our love, care, and occupation. They needed
no consolation that they could not find for
themselves in our haunted Grange and wilderness
garden; and though Willie was sorry to leave
his masters and friends at the Charter House, he
soon liked those he found at the grammar school.

I wish I could make you see the house; it is
a very pleasant place. It stands end-ways to
the road, and a high wall, enclosing the garden,
runs along it, back and front, for nearly a hundred
yards; ash-trees and beech-trees stretching
their branches over the parapet, and making
a delightful shady walk of the pathway of an
afternoon. It had been untenanted for several