former generation, and is the choicest of their household gods. A
comfortable cushioned chair, snug and restful, albeit the chintz
covering, though clean and tidy, as virtuous people's furniture always
is in fiction, is worn thin by long service, while the dear chair itself
is no longer the chair it once was as to legs and framework.

[Illustration: THE DINING-ROOM]

Evil days come upon the praiseworthy couple and their dependent brood,
among whom I faintly remember the love interest of the story to have
lain; and that direful day arrives when the average landlord of juvenile
fiction, whose heart is of adamant and brain of brass, distrains for the
rent. The rude broker swoops upon the humble dovecot; a cart or
hand-barrow waits on the carefully hearth-stoned doorstep for the
household gods; the family gather round the cherished chair, on which
the rude broker has already laid his grimy fingers; they hang over the
back and fondle the padded arms; and the old grandmother, with clasped
hands, entreats that, if able to raise the money in a few days, they may
be allowed to buy back that loved heirloom.

[Illustration: THE DRAWING-ROOM]

The broker laughs the plea to scorn; they might have their chair, and
cheap enough, he had no doubt. The cover was darned and patched--as only
the virtuous poor of fiction do darn and do patch--and he made no doubt
the stuffing was nothing better than brown wool; and with that coarse
taunt the coarser broker dug his clasp-knife into the cushion against
which grandfatherly backs had leaned in happier days, and lo! an
avalanche of banknotes fell out of the much-maligned horsehair, and the
family was lifted from penury to wealth. Nothing more simple--or more
natural. A prudent but eccentric ancestor had chosen this mode of
putting by his savings, assured that, whenever discovered, the money
would be useful to--somebody.

So ran the _scenario_; but I fancy my juvenile pen hardly held on to the
climax. My brief experience of boarding school occurred at this time,
and I well remember writing 'The Old Arm Chair' in a penny account book,
in the schoolroom of Cresswell Lodge, and that I was both surprised and
offended at the laughter of the kindly music-teacher who, coming into
the room to summon a pupil, and seeing me gravely occupied, inquired
what I was doing, and was intensely amused at my stolid method of
composition, plodding on undisturbed by the voices and occupations of
the older girls a