“Yes, I should like it; and it will please Robert so much. We might have him and Katie over to meet them, don't you think?”
“Let me see,” said Mrs. Brown, with much more alacrity, “Mr. and Mrs. Porter will have the best bed-room and dressing-room; Robert must have the south room, and Katie the chintz. Yes, that will do; I can manage it very well.”
“And their daughter; you have forgotten her.”
“Well, you see, dear, there is no more room.”
“Why; there is the dressing-room, next to the south room, with a bed in it. I'm sure nobody can want a better room.”
“You know, John, that Robert cannot sleep if there is the least noise. I could never put any-one into his dressing-room; there is only a single door between the rooms, and even if they made no noise, the fancy that some one was sleeping there would keep him awake all night.”
“Plague take his fancies! Robert has given way to them till he is fit for nothing. But you can put him in the chintz room, and give the two girls the south bed room and dressing-room.”
“What, put Robert in a room which looks north? My dear John; what can you be thinking about?”
Mr. Brown uttered an impatient grunt, and, as a vent to his feelings more decorous on the whole than abusing his brother-in-law, drew his whip more smartly than usual across the backs of his horses. The exertion of muscle necessary to reduce those astonished animals to their accustomed steady trot restored his temper, and he returned to the charge—
“I suppose we must manage it on the second floor, then, unless you could get a bed run up in the school-room.”