fe. Move that
leg a little, Jamsetzee."

I meekly replied that I had no doubt Polly would be delighted to see
her dear uncle, and as for inheriting, if it came to that, I did n't
know any one with a greater capacity for that than she.

"That depends," said the gruff old smoker, "how I like ye. A
fortune, scraped up in forty years in Ingy, ain't to be thrown away
in a minute. But what a house this is to live in!"; the
uncomfortable old relative went on, throwing a contemptuous glance
round the humble cottage. "Is this all of it?"

"In the winter it is all of it," I said, flushing up; "but in the
summer, when the doors and windows are open, it is as large as
anybody's house. And," I went on, with some warmth, "it was large
enough just before you came in, and pleasant enough. And besides," I
said, rising into indignation, "you can not get anything much better
in this city short of eight hundred dollars a year, payable first
days of January, April, July, and October, in advance, and my
salary...."

"Hang your salary, and confound your impudence and your seven-by-nine
hovel! Do you think you have anything to say about the use of my
money, scraped up in forty years in Ingy? THINGS HAVE GOT TO BE
CHANGED!" he burst out, in a voice that rattled the glasses on the
sideboard.

I should think they were. Even as I looked into the little fireplace
it enlarged, and there was an enormous grate, level with the floor,
glowing with seacoal; and a magnificent mantel carved in oak, old and
brown; and over it hung a landscape, wide, deep, summer in the
foreground with all the gorgeous coloring of the tropics, and beyond
hills of blue and far mountains lying in rosy light. I held my
breath as I looked down the marvelous perspective. Looking round for
a second, I caught a glimpse of a Hindoo at each window, who vanished
as if they had been whisked off by enchantment; and the close walls
that shut us in fled away. Had cohesion and gravitation given out?
Was it the "Great Consummation" of the year 18-? It was all like the
swift transformation of a dream, and I pinched my arm to make sure
that I was not the subject of some diablerie.

The little house was gone; but that I scarcely minded, for I had
suddenly come into possession of my wife's castle in Spain. I sat in
a spacious, lofty apartment, furnished with a princely magnificence.
Rare pictures adorned the walls, statues looked down from deep
niches, and over both the dark ivy of Eng