His servant had done the greater part of the upholstery.

The two between them had got the garden into order.
The Italians seemed to have taken a joint love to the place, and to deck it as they would have done some favourite chapel to their Madonna.
It was long before the natives reconciled themselves to the odd ways of the foreign settlers.

The first thing that offended them was the exceeding smallness of the household bills.

Three days out of the seven, indeed, both man and master dined on nothing else but the vegetables in the garden, and the fishes in the neighbouring rill; when no trout could be caught they fried the minnows (and certainly, even in the best streams, minnows are more frequently caught than trout).

The next thing which angered the natives quite as much, especially the female part of the neighbourhood, was the very sparing employment the two he creatures gave to the sex usually deemed so indispensable in household matters.