I find Morgan as bitterly resigned to
his destiny
as ever, and Owen so affectionately anxious to make himself of
some use, and so lamentably ignorant of how to begin, that I am
driven to disembarrass myself of him at the outset by a
stratagem.
I suggest to him that our visitor is sure to be interested in
pictures, and that it would be a pretty attention, on his part,
to paint her a landscape to hang up in her room. Owen brightens
directly, informs me in his softest tones that he is then at work
on the Earthquake at Lisbon, and inquires whether I think she
would like that subject. I preserve my gravity sufficiently to
answer in the affirmative, and my brother retires meekly to his
studio, to depict the engulfing of a city and the destruction of
a population. Morgan withdraws in his turn to the top of the
tower, threatening, when our guest comes, to draw all his meals
up to his new residence by means of a basket and string. I am
left alone for an hour, and then the upholsterer arrives from the
county town.
This worthy man, on being informed of our emergency, sees his
way, apparently, to a good stroke of business, and thereupon wins
my lasting gratitude by taking, in opposition to every one else,
a bright and hopeful view of existing circumstances.
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