most people."

"Henri!"

This was my uncle's maitre d'hotel, whom he had kept at board-wages the
whole time of our absence, in order to make sure of his ease, quiet,
taste, skill, and honesty, on his return.

"Monsieur!"

"I dare say"--my uncle spoke French exceedingly well for a foreigner;
but it is better to translate what he said as we go--"I dare say this
glass of vin de Bourgogne is very good; it _looks_ good, and it came
from a wine-merchant on whom I can rely; but Mons. Hugh and I are going
to drink together, a l'Americaine, and I dare say you will let us have a
glass of Madeira, though it is somewhat late in the dinner to take it."

"Tres volontiers, Messieurs--it is my happiness to oblige you."

Uncle Ro and I took the Madeira together; but I cannot say much in
favour of its quality.

"What a capital thing is a good Newtown pippin!" exclaimed my uncle,
after eating a while in silence. "They talk a great deal about their
_poire beurree_, here at Paris; but, to my fancy, it will not compare
with the Newtowners we grow at Satanstoe, where, by the way, the fruit
is rather better, I think, than that one finds across the river, at
Newtown itself."

"They are capital apples, sir; and your orchard at Satanstoe is one of
the best I know, or rather what is left of it; for I believe a portion
of your trees are in what is now a suburb of Dibbletonborough?"

"Yes, blast that place! I wish I had never parted with a foot of the old
neck, though I did rather make money by the sale. But money is no
compensation for the affections."

"_Rather_ make money, my dear sir! Pray, may I ask what Satanstoe was
valued at, when you got it from my grandfather?"

"Pretty well up, Hugh; for it was, and indeed _is_, a first-rate farm.
Including sedges and salt-meadows, you will remember that there are
quite five hundred acres of it, altogether."

"Which you inherited in 1829?"

"Of course; that was the year of my father's death. Why, the place was
thought to be worth about thirty thousand dollars at that time; but land
was rather low in Westchester in 1829."

"And you sold two hundred acres, including the point, the harbour, and a
good deal of the sedges, for the moderate modicum of one hundred and ten
thousand, cash. A tolerable sale, sir!"

"No, not cash. I got only eighty thousand down, while thirty thousand
were secured by mortgage."

"Which mortgage you hold yet, I dare say, if the truth were told,
covering the whol