as much as they cost me.  With the money thus received in my pocket I went to a neighbouring market town where there happened to be a shop that dealt in old furniture.  For less than ten pounds I bought an excellent oaken gate-table, half a dozen serviceable oak chairs, a couple of fine carved chests, and a corner cupboard.  My oak dresser and settle, each good specimens of serviceable cottage furniture, cost me thirty-seven shillings at a country auction.  I found that even at these modest prices I had paid too much.  Oaken furniture was common in these parts, and had little value.  When a church was restored, or an old house re-constructed, large quantities of old oak were literally thrown away.  Thus, at a merely nominal expense I acquired enough carved oak to fit together into a handsome fireplace, and later on the pews of a church came in for oak panelling.

Let me now picture my living-room as it was about four months after I took possession.  It was entirely oak panelled to a height of nine feet, above which about a foot of white-washed wall showed, forming a plain frieze.  The fireplace at one end of the room was built in with carved oak; what had been the corresponding fireplace at the other end of the room was turned into a cupboard, with plain oak doors.  The room had three old-fashioned leaded windows opening outward.  Two were original, one had been added—­the centre window taking the place of the gap left by the destroyed partition wall.  My oak chests, dresser and cupboard, constituted the furniture of the room.  The library, curtained off with a plain curtain of crimson plush, adjoined; the kitchen door opened at the east corner of the room.  The windows faced due south.  The room therefore was always sunny.  The floor-boards were stained, and covered by two or three cheap rugs.  Flowers were at the windows, a vase of flowers always on the table.  The fireplace was open, for I had removed the ugly modern grate, substituting for it a low hearth of red brick with iron dogs, on which wood could be burned.  This room, with the adjoining library, was the great feature of my little house.

The other rooms in the house required no alteration; fresh whitewash and wall-papers soon transformed them; and although they were small, they were not devoid of charm.  When my scheme of adaptation was complete I found myself possessed of a house containing one beautiful living-room, a small library, a kitchen, and four good bedrooms.  My bill for labour, including the mason’s work in the removal of the partition wall, the building of a new window, and the laying of a fresh hearth; the carpenter’s work in fitting my oak, and various minor repairs, amounted in all to about twelve pounds.  The cost of my furniture, including the oak panelling in the living-room, and all that was needed for the bedrooms, was about fifty pounds, against which I had to set thirty-eight pounds, received from the sale of my superfluous effects in London.  If I added to these sums the general expenses of removal, the carriage and cartage of my goods, and so forth, which I reckoned at ten pounds, I found that the cost of my exodus and new tenancy had been as follows:—­