daily applied to its surface, could produce. A heavy oaken cupboard, the sound of whose opening doors was music to the mendicant, and the neighbouring poor, and five or six tall chairs, with rush bottoms, completed the furniture. A wooden seat or sofa, commonly called a settle, was immoveably fixed, not far from the ample expanse of the fire-place. Over the mantle-piece, was a high and narrow shelf, which, at its western extremity, was multiplied into a triple row of shorter ones; forming a repository for a servant's library. This was composed principally of pamphlet sermons, or what was considered Sunday reading—ere the writer of novels had engrossed that department. Approximating to this library, hung the roasting-jack; which, when put in motion, with its complicated machinery extending from garret to cellar, alarmed the unlearned by its discordant sounds, and awoke in the minds of the superstitious some indefinite suspicion of the agency of evil spirits. On the broad hearth-stone, sat Beulah and her brother; the former, in token of seniority occupying the post of honour, in front of a blazing fire; the latter, with due decorum ensconced in a corner. The brow of the ebon damsel exhibited a more than usual cast of solemnity, by way of testifying respect to a New-Testament, on whose pages her eyes were devoutly fixed.
Cuffee regarded her for some minutes, as if doubtful whether an interruption of her studies would be tolerated. At length, with a long yawn, he hazarded the experiment, of expatiating on the excellence of the supper he
