isted of a nurse (herself an old woman),
who sat nearly all day in the parlour, because her far more aged
mistress required much attendance, a grey-headed housemaid, a cook, and
a man, the husband of this last. His chief business was to groom the one
horse of the establishment, and ride on it to the nearest town for meat,
grocery, and other marketings.

The floor of the parlour was oak, which had once been polished; all the
furniture was to the last degree quaint and old fashioned; the two large
windows opened like double doors upon the gallery, and were shaded by
curtains of Madras chintz. The chairs, which were inconveniently heavy,
were also covered with chintz; it was frilled round them like a
petticoat, and was just short enough to show their hideous club-feet.
Over the chimney-piece was a frame, and something in it said to be a
picture. Peter, when a very little child, used to call it "a picture of
the dark," for it seemed to be nothing but an expanse of deep brown,
with a spot of some lighter hue in one corner. He wished, he said, that
they had put a piece of moon in to show how dark that country was. The
old nurse, however, had her theories about this patch; she would have it
that it was somewhat in the shape of a jacket; she thought it likely
that the picture represented a hunt, and said she supposed the foremost
horseman in his red coat was watering his horse in a pond. Peter and the
nurse had argued together on this subject many times before the old lady
was appealed to, but when they once chanced to ask her about the
picture, she affirmed that the patch was a lobster, and that a sort of
ring which seemed faintly to encircle it was the edge of a plate. In
short, she declared that this was a Dutch picture of still life, and
that in Peter's time, when he came to have it cleaned, it would prove to
be worth money.

"And when will it be my time?" asked little Peter innocently.

"Hold your tongue, child!" whispered his mother; "it won't be your time
till your poor dear grandmother's in heaven."

"I don't want her to go to heaven yet," said Peter in a plaintive tone
(for he regarded her as much the best possession he had), and, raising
his voice, he complained to her as to one threatening to injure him,
"Grandmother, you don't want to go to heaven just yet, do you?"

"Lor bless the child!" exclaimed old Madam Melcombe, a good deal
startled.

"No, don't," continued Peter in a persuasive tone; "stop here, but le