BIRDS' NESTS. 149 



lovely order of nature which he had been con- 

 templating, was painful in the extreme. 



The room was wretchedly furnished, and of 

 the few things that were in it, nothing seemed 

 in its place. There w r as a dresser, but most 

 of the nails for hanging cups and saucers on, 

 had been taken out, perhaps to mend the 

 rickety chairs, or to nail together the two 

 pieces of a leg of the table. One of the chairs 

 had no back, and another wanted a leg. The 

 table had all its four legs, but there was no 

 part of the room where they could possibly 

 be made to touch the floor all at once, so un- 

 even was it. On the lower shelf of the dresser 

 stood a very dirty saucepan, and on the upper 

 ones were a shoe, a pair of bellows without a 

 snout, a dirty cap trimmed with crumpled 

 flowers, and a few other such things. The 

 two drawers of the dresser were open, as if 

 some one had been looking for something, and 

 had not taken the trouble to close them. One 

 of them was nearly filled with rabbit-skins; 



