I could not help noticing how very
pretty and even elegant all things were around. For we upon Exmoor have
little taste; all we care for is warm comfort, and plenty to eat and to
give away, and a hearty smack in everything. But Squire Faggus had seen
the world, and kept company with great people; and the taste he had
first displayed in the shoeing of farmers' horses (which led almost to
his ruin, by bringing him into jealousy, and flattery, and dashing ways)
had now been cultivated in London, and by moonlight, so that none could
help admiring it.

"Well!" I cried, for the moment dropping care and woe in astonishment:
"we have nothing like this at Plover's Barrows; nor even Uncle Reuben. I
do hope it is honest, Annie?"

"Would I sit in a chair that was not my own?" asked Annie, turning
crimson, and dropping defiantly, and with a whisk of her dress which
I never had seen before, into the very grandest one: "would I lie on a
couch, brother John, do you think, unless good money was paid for it?
Because other people are clever, John, you need not grudge them their
earnings."

"A couch!" I replied: "why what can you want with a couch in the
day-time, Annie? A couch is a small bed, set up in a room without space
for a good four-poster. What can you want with a couch downstairs? I
never heard of such nonsense. And you ought to be in the dairy."

"I won't cry, brother John, I won't; because you want to make me
cry"--and all the time she was crying--"you always were so nasty, John,
sometimes. Ah, you have no nobility of character, like my husband. And I
have not seen you for two months, John; and now you come to scold me!"

"You little darling," I said, for Annie's tears always conquered me;
"if all the rest ill-use me, I will not quarrel with you, dear. You have
always been true to me; and I can forgive your vanity. Your things
are very pretty, dear; and you may couch ten times a day, without my
interference. No doubt your husband has paid for all this, with the
ponies he stole from Exmoor. Nobility of character is a thing beyond
my understanding; but when my sister loves a man, and he does well and
flourishes, who am I to find fault with him? Mother ought to see these
things: they would turn her head almost: look at the pimples on the
chairs!"

"They are nothing," Annie answered, after kissing me for my kindness:
"they are only put in for the time indeed; and we are to have much
better, with gold all round the bindings,