Our removal to the country took place rather suddenly. One of my acquaintances was induced, on account of the ill health of his lady, to go abroad with her, and having a country house which he had tried to let without success for some time, made me an offer of the use of it during his absence for the amount of the taxes. This was in many respects a Godsend; for it was much less expensive than I expected to find any fit residence, and far superior to the kind of place I was in search of. But Mr. Ascomy looked only at the house itself; and although the rent should have been the main consideration with him, he yet loudly descanted on the style of the place, without noticing that it led to no change in our ordinary establishment. On one occasion he carried his animadversions so far, that we were on the eve of quite quarrelling. It is astonishing how much this sort of friendly interposition often ruffles the comfort of families. On me, however, it frequently failed to produce the effects it ought to have done; for I permitted Mr. Ascomy to indulge himself, amused by the ludicrous arguments with which his remonstrances were generally supported, and the shallow plausibility with which he backed them, by circumstances which had no relation whatever to the case. I remember on one occasion he attempted to demonstrate, and with some ingenuity too, that the decay of the value of Jamaica property was an effect deducible from the invasion of India by Alexander the Great, the sugar-cane, as he said, having been originally brought from that region.