"The old man's strongest effort in my father's favour, however, was the proposal of a glass of wine. He seemed to have screwed himself up to the offer, and to be proportionately relieved when it was declined.
"'You're quite right,' he said, frankly; 'my wine is not so good as my books. Come and see them, whenever you like.'
"'The bookshelves shall be repaired, sir,' was his final promise in answer to a hint from my father, who (it being successful, and he being a very straight-forward man) was ever afterwards ashamed of this piece of diplomacy. 'And the fire-place must be seen to. Lord! Lord! A man can live anywhere, but valuable books must be taken care of. Would you believe it? I have a fire in this room three times a week in bad weather. And fuel is terribly dear, terribly dear. And that slut in the kitchen burns as much as if she had the care of the Vatican Library. She said she couldn't roast the meat without. "Then give me cold meat!" I said; but she roasts and boils all the same. So last week I forbade the butcher the house, and we've lived on cheese ever since, and that's eightpence a pound. Food is terribly dear here, sir; everything is dear. It's enough to ruin a man. And you've got a family. Lord! Lord! How a man can keep a family and books together, I can't imagine. However, I suppose children live chiefly on porridge.'
"Which supposition served for long as a household joke against my brothers, whose appetite for roast meat was not less than that of other healthy boys of the period.
"It was a happy moment when my father came back from this interview, and Reka Dom was fairly ours. But a more delightful one was that in which I told the successful result of my embassy to the nursery conclave. I certainly had not the remotest claim to credit in the matter, but I received an ovation proportionate to the good news I brought. I told my story skilfully, and made the six gardens the crowning point; at which climax my brother and sisters raised a shout that so far exceeded the average of even nursery noises, that my mother hurried to the spot, where our little sister Phil flung herself into her arms, and almost sobbing with excitement, cried—
"'Oh, Mother dear! we're hooraying for Reka Dom!'
"It was sagely prophesied by our nurse and others that we should soon be tired of our new fancy, and find 'plenty to complain of' in Reka Dom as elsewhere. (It is nursery wisdom to chasten juvenile enthusiasm by such depressing truths.) And undoubtedly both people and places are apt to disappoint one's expectations on intimate acquaintance; but there are people and places who keep love always, and such an one was Reka Dom.
"I hardly know what to tell you of it, Ida. The happy years we spent there were marked by no wonderful occurrences, and were not enlivened by any particular gaiety. Beyond our own home our principal treat was to take tea in the snug little house where we made our first acquaintances. Those good ladies proved kind friends to us. Their buns were not to be surpassed, and they had pale albums, and faded treasures of the preceding generation, which it was our delight to overhaul. The two sisters lived with their invalid brother, and that was the household. Their names were Martha and Mary, and they cherished a touching bit of sentiment in reference to the similarity between their circumstances and those of the Family of Bethany.