for a lamp of elegant design and vivid lustre burning on a table, it was a very plain place. The boarded floor was carpetless; the three or four stiff-backed green-painted chairs seemed once to have furnished the kitchen of some farm-house; a desk of strong, solid formation, the table aforesaid, and some framed sheets on the stone-coloured walls, bearing plans for building, for gardening, designs of machinery, &c., completed the furniture of the place.
Plain as it was, it seemed to satisfy Malone, who, when he had removed and hung up his wet surtout and hat, drew one of the rheumatic-looking chairs to the hearth, and set his knees almost within the bars of the red grate.
“Comfortable quarters you have here, Mr. Moore, and all snug to yourself.”
“Yes; but my sister would be glad to see you, if you would prefer stepping into the house.”
“Oh, no! the ladies are best alone. I never was a lady’s man. You don’t mistake me for my friend Sweeting, do you, Mr. Moore?”
“Sweeting!—which of them is that? The gentleman in the chocolate over-coat, or the little gentleman?”
“The little one;—he of Nunnely;—the cavalier of the Misses Sykes, with the whole six of whom he is in love, ha! ha!”
“Better be generally in love with all than specially with one, I should think, in that quarter.”
“But he is specially in love with one besides, for
