rate thing. This is the way you
lash it to the mast when you want to; and when you want to move about
you let down the rollers and fasten them with this hook, and go where
you please. Twenty-seven changes of position. Why, you can read, eat,
sleep, ride, get married, run for Congress, die, and be buried in that
chair, if you want to!" he said, by way of final recommendation.

"Thank you, but I don't wish to die. I would rather live," said Miss
Noel, laughing cheerfully for the first time since her illness. "And did
you really design it for me? How very kind! I must really try to get it
worked out, if you think it will answer, as of course you do."

"Oh, don't you bother your head about that," he replied. "I worked it
all out one night, and set a smart carpenter at it the next morning
before breakfast. And it's a perfect success. And I've got it down at
the hotel, ready for you. I'm coming up here to put you in it and take
you down to the steamer myself."

Sir Robert and Mr. Heathcote now came in (the latter having returned
from Baltimore an affianced man), and Ethel and Bijou followed, and
everybody was delighted to see everybody else; and they had so much to
talk about that Sir Robert almost forgot that he was engaged to preside
over a children's dinner-party at the house of an intimate friend of the
De Witts. He hurried off, though; and never had he "looked into" ten
more charming little faces than brightened on his arrival. The way in
which he radiated good humor, intelligence, benevolence, told stories
and jokes that kept the little company shouting with laughter, and
finally rose and got off an impromptu piece of doggerel with exactly ten
verses, and each child's name and some peculiarity brought out in a way
to convulse even mammas and the maids, was as indescribable as
delightful. I am not sure that he did not enjoy it more than any of the
grand entertainments that he had been asked to; and as for the children,
they remember it to this day, although they are on the verge of
young-ladyhood and at college now and have very serious demands made on
their memories.

After a pleasant little interval of reunion and various diversions, the
day came at last for our English people to leave the country. What they
felt about this necessity was well expressed for them by Sir Robert in
the last letter that he wrote before going on the steamer.

"I am glad to turn my face toward the old land, which must always seem
to me t