'Having taken these measures, I returned to London, where I
forthwith sold off my household-furniture, and, in three weeks
from my first visit, brought my wife hither to keep her
Christmas. -- Considering the gloomy season of the year, the
dreariness of the place, and the decayed aspect of our
habitation, I was afraid that her resolution would sink under the
sudden transition from a town life to such a melancholy state of
rustication; but I was agreeably disappointed. -- She found the
reality less uncomfortable than the picture I had drawn. -- By this
time indeed, things were mended in appearance -- The out-houses had
risen out of their ruins; the pigeon-house was rebuilt, and
replenished by Wilson, who also put my garden in decent order,
and provided a good stock of poultry, which made an agreeable
figure in my yard; and the house, on the whole, looked like the
habitation of human creatures. -- Farmer Bland spared me a milch
cow for my family, and an ordinary saddle-horse for my servant to
go to market at the next town. -- I hired a country lad for a
footman, the hind's daughter was my house-maid, and my wife had
brought a cook-maid from London.
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