See, I make an arched ceiling--groined
arch, eh?--and I gild him; so I get pretty light and pretty sound,
not? Ah! madame, I have not de happiness to be married, but I make my
house so, dat if I get me a wife, she find all ready; but no wife come,
so I give him over to Herr Campbell and you. Now we mount up-stairs to
de bed-rooms, eh?"
In this way he went over the entire house with us. His loud, jolly
voice, his resounding laugh, his bustling manner, his heedless, boy-
like self-confidence, and his deafness, made it impossible to get in a
word of explanation, and, after a few efforts, I gave up the attempt.
"Let him suppose what he likes," I said aside to Ethel, "it can make no
difference; he is going away, and you will never see him again. After
all these years, it can do no great harm for us to play at being Mr.
and Mrs. Campbell for an hour!"
"It is a very beautiful house," she said, tacitly accepting what I had
proposed. "It is such a house as I have always dreamed of living in. I
shall not care to look at any others. Will you tell him that we--that I
will take it just as it stands.
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