Mr. Boffin then put on his hat, and Mrs. Boffin her shawl; and the pair, further provided with a bunch of keys and a lighted lantern, went all over the dismal house⁠—dismal everywhere, but in their own two rooms⁠—from cellar to cockloft. Not resting satisfied with giving that much chase to Mrs. Boffin’s fancies, they pursued them into the yard and outbuildings, and under the mounds. And setting the lantern, when all was done, at the foot of one of the mounds, they comfortably trotted to and fro for an evening walk, to the end that the murky cobwebs in Mrs. Boffin’s brain might be blown away.

“There, my dear!” said Mr. Boffin when they came in to supper. “That was the treatment, you see. Completely worked round, haven’t you?”