t being worn; there were spindle-legged side-tables
holding inlaid "papier-mache" desks and rose-wood work-boxes, and two or
three carved cedar or sandal-wood cases of various shapes. And, most
tempting of all to my mind, there were glass-doored cupboards in the
wall, with great treasures of handleless teacups and very fat teapots,
not to speak of bowls and jugs of every form and size; and everything,
from the Indian box with the ivory chessmen to the china Turk with his
long pipe of green spun-glass, sitting cross-legged on the high
mantelpiece between a very sentimental lady and gentleman, also of
china, who occupied its two ends,--_everything_ was exactly and
precisely in its own place, in what had been its own place ever since
the day, now more than thirty years ago, when Grandpapa, the tall old
gentleman, had retired from the army on half-pay and come to settle down
at Arbitt Lodge for the rest of his life with Grandmamma and their son
Marmaduke. A very small Marmaduke, for he was the only one left of a
pretty flock who, one after the other, had but hovered down into the
world for a year or two to spread their tiny wings and take flight
again, leaving two desolate hearts behind them. And in this same parlour
at Arbitt Lodge had _that_ little Marmaduke learned to walk, and then to
run, to gaze with admiring eyes on the treasures in the glass cupboards,
to play bo-peep behind the thick silken curtains, even in _his_ time
faded to a withered-leaf green, to poke his tiny nose into the bowl of
pot-pourri on the centre table, which made him sneeze just exactly
as--ah! but I am forgetting--never mind, I may as well finish the
sentence--just exactly as it made "us" sneeze now!

After the tap came a kind of little pattering and scratching, like baby
taps, not quite sure of their own existence; then, had Grandpapa's and
Grandmamma's ears been a very little sharper, they could not but have
heard a small duel in words.

"_You_, bruvver, my fingers' bones is tired."

"I _told_ you, sister," reproachfully, "us should always bring old
Neddy's nose downstairs with us. They never hear _us_ tapping."

Then a faint sigh or two and a redoubled assault, crowned with success.
Grandmamma, whom after all I am not sure but that I have maligned in
calling her deaf--the taps were so very faint really!--Grandmamma looks
up from her netting, and in a thin but clear voice calls out, "Come in!"

The door opens--then, after admitting the en