the man living constantly with us,-evincing beyond the shadow of doubt his devotion towards my sister-in-law, and received by her with a corresponding frankness of approval. Wells was in no humour to soften or qualify what he had said of him, and I thought I had found out enough of Mrs. Brandyball's character to be certain that when she found that we completely threw him over, she would let him lie in the mire without any farther attempt at his exaltation.

Tom, who came in with the dessert, had been upstairs with Harriet and her sister, and, by the expression of his most expressive countcnance, I was dreadfully apprehensive that he had picked enough out of their conversation to understand that the Lieutenant had behaved somehow ungenteelly, and had received his congé. The imp looked cunning, and as, besides what he might have extracted from the dialogue of the sisters, he was extremely fond of collecting facetiæ from the servants' hall, it seemed extremely likely that the real state of the case had oozed out during the afternoon, and that he might favour us with the domestic version of the "soger officer's" inglorious retreat.

Cuthbert, whose consummate skill in the art of child-spoiling I have now watched with more attention than satisfaction, whenever the girls were away, bestowed all his favours upon their lout of a brother, and he had at this period expressed a wish, which came like a gentle command, that Tom should take, or seem to take, a great interest in everything that was going on.

"Whenever you don't understand anything that is talked of, Tommy," said my brother, "always ask me. It is by inquiring, everybody learns. It will save you a great deal of trouble in the end." And accordingly Tom felt bound to be unceasingly inquisitive, always, however, running poor Cuthbert eventually into a corner, and then irritating him as much as it was possible for him to be irritated by anything. This questionable system of improvement of course destroyed anything like rational or even connected conversation during the presence of the hopeful youth in the dining-room, and knowing how tiresome his company would be to Harriet and Fanny, I had not the courage to send him up to the boudoir, which, as his fair sisters were out, was the only place which could be appropriated to his use.

"I know no more of him personally," said Wells, speaking of some public man," than I do of the Pope of Rome."

"Who is the Pope of Rome, uncle ?" said Tom.

My dear boy," said Cuthbert, "he is elected by the Cardinals." "What's a cardinal, uncle?"

"A cardinal, my love, is an ecclesiastical prince, and a member of the sacred college."

"Yes," said Wells," and the Roman Catholics hold that, as the pope represents Moses, so the cardinals represent the seventy elders."

They wear red hats," said Mrs. Brandyball.

Why do they wear red hats?" said Tom.

"For the same reason, Master Tommy," said Wells, "that millers wear white ones."

"What's that?" said Tom.

"To keep their heads warm," said Wells.

"How incalculably whimsical you are, Mr. Wells," said Mrs. Brandyball.

"Did you never hear of any great man who was called Pope, who never was a cardinal ?" said Cuthbert, evidently determined to obtain some share of Mrs. Brandyball's favourable opinion.

"No," said Tom.

"Not Alexander Pope, the poet ?" said Cuthbert, leading him dexterously to an affirmative.

"No: who was he?" said Tom.

"Why, Tommy," said Wells, bored to death by the boy's pertinacity, "he was once called a note of interrogation."

"What's a note of interrogation ?" said Tom.

"A little ugly thing that asks questions," said the Rector.

"Oh, Mr. Wells," said Mrs. Brandyball," that is too severe. Το my mind Pope was not much of a poet.'

"

"To mine," said I," he appears the greatest poet we ever had." "Who is the best poet now, pappy ?" said Tom.

Poet, my dear," said Cuthbert; never mind, I don't know,I'm sure,-there, now that will do,-eat your orange."

"I perfectly agree with you, Mr. Gurney," said Mrs. Brandyball, "as to the utility of the system of exciting the development of the mental qualities by the institution of a principle of inquiry which must, while its results add fresh stores of information to the questioner, induce a constant desire for new acquirements."

Wells and I exchanged looks, for although it may seem most illiberal that we should encourage any doubts or suspicions with regard to the perfect ebriety of our fair guest, we could not fail to remark that the long words in which she dealt came out rather indistinctly; however, when Wells replenished her glass with port wine, which she that day drank, because she said "the cadent humidity" (Anglice, some rain which had fallen during the afternoon,) "had imparted an agueish character to the circumambient atmosphere."

My position was an awkward one; whenever she evinced a disposition to retire, her destination would be the drawing-room, with no companion save Tom, I therefore did not feel in the slightest degree desirous of unsettling her; nor dare I venture to pay my poor wife a visit, lest the movement should flurry our fair visiter. I knew that in the present state of their minds her joining them would be beyond description disagreeable, and so I affected to be exceedingly snug and comfortable; and Wells seconding my efforts to keep the little party together, the lady gradually warming by the generous influence of what, in the earlier part of the day, she would probably have called the "vinous juice," began proportionably to relinquish all her fine words and euphonic phrases, until at length her natural candour led her not only to talk like other people, but to give us some curious particulars of her own "life, character, and behaviour," to which I must say the Rector most insidiously led and encouraged her.

"Little pitchers have great ears," said Mrs. Brandyball; "Master Tom had better go to his aunty,-as for my part, I can only say that in France the ladies never leave the table until the gentlemen go.'

"Or rather," interrupted Wells, "the gentlemen always go when the ladies leave the table."

kr now,

"It's the same thing in the end," said Mrs. Brandyball; what I mean to say is this,-Mrs. Gurney is unwell, and, I dare say,

would be better pleased with my room than my company. Indeed, between you and me and the post, I don't think I am overmuch of a favourite with her at any time; and so-as I feel agueish-although the port wine has done me a great deal of good, I don't want to stir from where I am till tea-time we are very snug where we are-only, to be sure, you may have something to talk about-parish, as we say,in which case I'm off-a nod's as good as a wink to a blind horse."

"But you are not a blind horse," said Tom, looking at her with a perfect consciousness that the expression of her countenance, and the character of her conversation, had undergone a very decided alteration. No, Master Tom," said the lady, " that's very true."

66

66 No," ," said Tom; "no more than I am a little pitcher; hi'm hup to you, stoopid as you may fancy me.”

Tommy, love," said Cuthbert, "don't speak in that manner to Mrs. Brandyball: what would your sisters say if they heard you?"

"Say!" said Tom; "why, they'd laugh like fun, specially Kitty, she would tell me to go it like winkin."

Here the lady telegraphed to me her desire that Tom should be missing as soon as possible; and while she was occupied in this operation, Wells again replenished her glass, having ascertained that she had arrived at an amiable state of oblivious mystification, in which, although she gave some slight evidence of surprise at finding her goblet, like the Panmure punch-bowl, always full, she could not exactly recollect having previously emptied it.

This tampering with her weakness, and ministering to her failing, might have been, by the more rigid, considered, what is colloquially called, "taking an unfair advantage," and I think even I, in my own house, or, what was so called and considered in the neighbourhood, should have interposed to prevent the proceeding, had it not been that I felt I was doing Cuthbert and his daughters-in-law an essential service in contributing to rub off the plating, which he mistook for precious metal, and by allowing his favourite the full gratification of what Kitty had more than once hinted was, when she was at home, her Custom always of the afternoon,"

66

permit her to exhibit herself in her natural colours. I confess the signal success which crowned the early part of the process, and the suddenness with which the mask had been abandoned, rather induced me to sanction its continuance so long as the lady continued "nothing loth;" and so long as no undue influence was exercised over her to induce her to exceed her usual limits.

I answered her signal, and desired Tom to go and get his tea with Harriet and Fanny, in the boudoir, although it was extremely disagree. able to do what I knew would, to a certainty, make them particularly unhappy.

"I'm hoff," said Tom: "hi knows what's what. She's a-going to let out some of her rum stories, -and his afraid that I should hear them."

Tom, my boy, go when your uncle tells you," said Cuthbert.

Oh, nobody wants to stop," said Tom; "I likes to go to Haunt Fan a precious sight more than staying here."

And out he went, banging the door after him, whistling as he crossed the hall, and stumped up stairs, to torment the consulting sisters.

"He's a nice boy," said Mrs. Brandyball, "only, as I said, Children pick up words, as pigeons peas,

And utter them again as God shall please.'

And something might be said about somebody that might as well go no further; as I say,prevention is better than cure,' and I hate tattling."

6

"You are perfectly right," said Wells, with a look of the profoundest respect, and in a manner so horribly deferential, that I had nearly burst into a fit of laughing, although I was in fact in no very mirthful humour. "Why, la, Mr. Wells," continued the lady, who having freed herself from the restraint imposed by Tom's presence, went off at score; "you must naturally think I know a good deal of the world at my time of life; and so having seen what I have seen in it, my proverb is, the least said, sooner mended.'"

Yes, thought I, and I suspect your temporary forgetfulness of so excellent a maxim at the present moment is likely to produce some curious results; for I saw Cuthbert every now and then elevate his eyebrows, in a manner for him most actively expressive of astonishment at what he heard.

“Why,” said the lady, "now I'll tell you; you know those two girls of yours are as fond of me as if I was their own mother. That's mere nature-all nature-every bit of it nature; they never knew their own mother, then isn't it natural they should love me?—I have always been kind to them, and, as Mr. Gurney knows, never said wrong was the thing they did, though Kitty's as full of mischief as an egg's full of meat:-well then-I-so-oh, what was I saying-something

"You were speaking of the natural affection of children for their parents," said Wells, who performed his part in the domestic farce with the greatest gravity.

"So I was," said the lady; "and-I had no mother myself!" "What! never, Ma'am ?" said Wells.

“Oh, Mr. Wells," said Mrs. Brandyball, "what a man you are! you do remind me so of an uncle of mine at Bristol."

"Oh," said Wells, "then you had an uncle?"

"Two," said the lady; "and, as you said, I had a mother, but she died before I knew anything about her, and that's a very bad thing for a girl."

"And so," continued she, "I was left a good deal to myself; and that was, I think, the foundation of all my knowledge. I was what they would call a self-taught genius. I never was taught nothing on earth by nobody until after I was married, and then poor Mr. B., who was mighty particular, he was a very old man when I married him— at least I thought so then,-I don't believe he was near so old as Mr. Gurney, but he was a deal too old to marry me, so when I came out with my P's and Q's-all wrong, you know he used to fidget, and look cross, and so then I had masters and mistresses,-and got on uncommonly well, and never having any family-none of what the advertising servants call incumbrances-I had plenty of time to devote to myself, and so-as-I say-learning is a treasure-I-then-poor

Mr. B. died-he was in a very extensive way of business-in the timber trade-but somehow-I don't recollect the particulars-when he died, it was found-I never could understand why-that he had not left me a farden-no, Mr. Wells, as I'm a living woman, not the value of a brass farden-nothing settled on me ;-and then I was-nobody to help me my uncle died-and my father gone abroad for life.”

"What a dreadful position for a female," said Cuthbert, who, in the tenderness of his heart, and the intensity of his sympathy in our fair friend's misfortunes, totally lost sight of the main points of her history so candidly-so unconsciously narrated for our edification.

"And what did happen to you?" said Wells.

"Oh," said Mrs. Brandyball," nothing happened to me: I began to think what I had best do-and what was easiest to be done; and just as I was quite at a nonplus, I happened to fall in with a nice respectable lady who kept the school I now keep."

666

'Who wore that day the arms which now I wear;'" said I, involuntarily.

No, not arms," said the lady-" school,-oh, I remember-out of the play-Norval-ha! ha!-On the Grampy Hills,'-that's a very moving play-it always makes me cry to think of his poor dear mother."

My dear Gilbert," said Wells, "you have interrupted Mrs. Brandyball in her autobiography."

"Oh, there's not much to tell," said the lady; "only my new friend Mrs. Slinkin wanted an assistant to teach French, Italian, music, geography, and astronomy, and so I engaged myself-her great objection was to my name-which, she said, gave a notion that I was-ha! ha! -the idea-addicted to the use of spirits-but, as I said, what's in a name?—there's Mr. Young, very old-Mrs. White, very brown-Mr. Short, very tall and Mrs. Little, very big,-and why should not Mrs. Brandyball be as sober as a judge *?"

"Why not, indeed!" said Wells, once more filling up her glass; "and so, I conclude, you satisfied your friend?"

Quite entirely so," said Mrs. Brandyball; "so I took the situation, and we got on very comfortably indeed, the best part of the thing is, I didn't know any of the things I went to teach, that is to say, I knew a little of them; but what I said was this, I shall learn them all in time, by teaching the girls,-and so I did-and so then Mrs Slinkin made friends with a Bath doctor,-and he used to recommend Montpelier House as the healthiest place in the neighbourhood,—and so people sent their children to us, and then we sent out one or two to India, and so made a connexion that way,-and at last Mrs. Slinkin married the doctor, and I stepped into the business; and now, I'll venture to say, there isn't a better conducted school in all England, Ireland, and Scotland, or Berwick-upon-Tweed."

Whereupon, to my infinite amazement, I beheld my brother Cuthbert elevate himself to an angle of forty-five, and say, in the sweetest imaginable tone,

"To that I think I can myself bear testimony."

This announcement evidently startled Wells as much as it had sur

*At the period of which Mr. Gilbert Gurney's papers treat, James Smith's admirable song upon the subject of similar anomalies had not appeared.-Ed.