WYLDER'S HAJVD.
87
"You horrid dunce! — it's a book, but a stupid one
— so no matter," laughed Miss Rachel, giving him a lit-
tle slap on the shoulder with her slender fingers.
"It's a confounded deal more like the ' Valley of the
Shadow of Death, in Pilgrim's Progress' —you remem-
ber — that old Tamar used to read to us in the nursery,"
replied Master Stanley, who had never enjoyed being
quizzed by his sister.
"If you don't like my scenery, come in, Stanley, and
admire my decorations. You must tell me all the news,
and I'll show you my house, and amaze you with my
-house-keeping. Dear me how long it is since I've seen
you."
So she led him in by the arm to her tiny drawing-
room; and he laid his hat and stick, and grey paletot, on
her little marquetrie-table, and sat down, and looked lan-
guidly about him, with a sly smile, like a man amused.
"You are very oddly housed, Radie."
"I like it," she said quietly, also with a glance round
her homely drawing-room.
"What do you call this, your boudoir or parlor?"
"I call it my drawing-room, but i'ts anything you
please."
"What very odd people our ancestors were," he mused
on. "They lived, I suppose, out of doors like the cows,
and only came into their sheds at night, when they could
not see the absurd ugliness of the places they inhabited.
Lots of rats, I fancy, Radie, behind that wainscoting?
What's that horrid work of art against the wall?"
"A shell-work cabinet, dear. It is not beautiful I al-
low. If I were strong enough, or poor old Tamar, I
should have put it away; and now that you are here,
Stanley, I think I'll make you carry it out to the lobby
for me,?'