or blow a trumpet. We were forced to submit to it. The nursery also
being against the partition wall, we had the squalls and noise of the
children on the one side, added to groans and execrations of the old
gentleman on the other.

However, custom reconciled us to everything, and the first vexation
gradually wore off. Yet I could not help observing that when I was
supposed not to be in hearing, the chief conversation of my wife, when
her friends called upon her, consisted of a description of all the
nuisances and annoyances that we suffered; and I felt assured that she
and my daughters were as anxious to return to Brompton Hall as I was.
In fact, the advantages which they had anticipated by their town
residence were not realised. In our situation, we were as far off from
most of our friends, and still farther from some than we were before,
and we had no longer the same amusements to offer them. At our former
short distance from town, access was more easy to those who did not keep
a carriage, that is, the young men; and those were the parties who, of
course, my wife and daughters cared for most. It was very agreeable to
come down with their portmanteaus,--enjoy the fresh air and green lanes
of the country for an afternoon,--dine, sleep, and breakfast, and return
the next morning by conveyances which passed us every quarter of an
hour; but to dine with us in -- Square, when the expense of a
hackney-coach there and back was no trifle, and to return at eleven
o'clock at night, was not at all agreeable. We found that we had not so
much society, nor were we half so much courted, as at Brompton Hall.
This was the bitterest blow of all, and my wife and daughters would look
out of the windows and sigh; often a whole day passed without one friend
or acquaintance dropping in to relieve its monotony.

We continued to reside there, nevertheless, for I had made up my mind
that the three years would be well spent if they cured my wife and
daughters of their town mania; and although anxious, as I am sure they
were, to return, I never broached the matter, for I was determined that
the cure should be radical. Numbers 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8, were finished
the next year, and, by the persuasions of Mr Smithers, were taken by
different parties in the spring. And now we had another nuisance.
Nothing but eternal rings at the bell. The man-servant grumbled, and
was behind with his work; and when scolded, replied that there was no
time f