terfere with us-only, perhaps, when Harriet is confined, we may

"Oh, that's another matter," said Cuthbert; "Kitty has got all the particulars of the man's terms; and I had the paper yesterday, but I'm sure I haven't any idea where it is now. Do just ring the bell, Gilbert; I'll get Hutton to look for it, and then he can take a message about it."

I rang the bell, and Hutton appeared.

"Have you seen," said Cuthbert to the servant, “a paper about the terms of a dancing-master that Miss Falwasser gave me yesterday?"

"Yes, sir," said Hutton, "Mr. Kittington; I have been there, sir, to his house. Miss Falwasser told me to desire him to call upon you to-day: he said he would be here at three. I thought, sir, Miss had told you so herself, or I should have mentioned it."

"Oh, that's all very convenient," said Cuthbert; "I'll see him when he comes. Where are the young ladies?"

"Out in the laundry, I believe, sir," said Hutton, "acting a play; Master Tom has got some fireworks there, and they are all dressed up; and Miss Fanny Wells, and her sister, and Mr. Merman are there."

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Dear me," said Cuthbert; "what a pity they don't come and act here; it would amuse us excessively; it is quite out of the question going all the way across the court-yard. What droll things,-eh?"

This all sounded mighty playful and extremely pretty; but the circumstances, the free and easy manner of Miss Kitty Falwasser considered, are not altogether satisfactory to me, I confess. It was clear that the two girls entirely managed their indolent father-in-law; and that the elder one, fully conscious of her power over him, had, having merely expressed a wish, and asked permission to take lessons in dancing, reckoned his compliance so much as a matter of course, as not to think it necessary to wait even till she had obtained it, before she sent for the Terpsichorean professor. As to my opinion or objection upon the subject, it was clear that none of the family considered them of the slightest importance.

I certainly had the curiosity to visit the "theatre," where I found Miss Falwasser with her face blackened, dressed up in a shawl and turban, having squeezed herself into a pair of her brother Tom's trousers, personating Othello, while Jenny was exhibiting herself as Desdemona, Tom's only bargain being, that he was to fire the salute from the batteries at Cyprus, which were ingeniously represented

by one of the coppers in the laundry, which was fitted up with battlements, and cannon round its edge, while the ac tive contriver was concealed within, from which ambush he cunningly managed to raise his hand unseen to the touchhole of his small artillery, the first one of which that was fired recoiled with considerable force, and severely wounded the skilful gunner just between his eyes.

Tom bellowed, the girls screamed, and the only thing to be done was to send for Sniggs. Fanny Wells was dreadfully agitated, and was led to her room by the attentive and assiduous Lieutenant, her sister Bessy following her, but with a far different expression of countenance. All this was unpleasant: but what could I do? It was clear to me that the elder of the young ladies was blessed with what is called a spirit-a lively imagination, and not the most profound veneration for rigid truth. Her ideas were rather of the romantic, and although her ignorance of the essentials of education were to my eyes and ears apparent, nature had compensated to her for any deficiency of taste or erudition, by giving her a disposition to inquisitiveness upon all matters except those which were likely to be advantageous either to her manners or her morals.

Unfortunately for Kitty she was handsome, and every body was foolish enough to tell her so; which, so long as fortune afforded her a maid and a mirror, was evidently a work of supererogation. Her sister Jane was her slave, and with a totally different character, temperament, and disposition, compelled to join in pursuits for which she had naturally no inclination, because she literally dared not disobey her senior.

Sniggs arrived in less than half an hour to examine Tom's wounds, and a few minutes after came Kittington, the dancing-master, to receive Cuthbert's commands about the lessons. Harriet, who certainly was not so much affected by the bump on Tom's nose as I apprehended she might have been, sat down to write Mrs. Brandyball a letter of invitation; and while Tom was bellowing like a calf up and down stairs, Fanny Wells sobbing most interestingly, and Jane and Bessy talking over the explosion as something terrific, I was assailed at once in the drawing-room, where Cuthbert was deposited, by the medical opinions of the apothecary, the discussion of terms with the dancing-master, and the hypocritical sentimentalism of Lieutenant Merman, whom I admit I cordially detested.

"The accident," said Sniggs, "is providentially unimportant: an inch one way or the other might have made it VOL. I.-4

serious right eye-left eye-one or the other might have gone-but in the middle, between the two eyes, is what I' call' In medio tutissimus Eye bis'—not bad that, Mr. Gurney, considering I am only a pupil myself. The worst effect will be a little discoloration of the skin. I'll send up something by way of fomentation, which shall set all to rights: but I would advise you to caution Master Falwasser not to repeat the experiment."

"Certainly, I shall," said Cuthbert. "Foolish boy, to take all that trouble to load all those little cannon, and then to get into a copper to fire them. Dear, dear, how indefatigable youth is in the pursuit of pleasure!"

"Ah!" said Sniggs, turning to Mr. Kittington, "good day -how is mamma-lumbago better?—did not call this morning-used the opedeldoc?-sister quite well

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Quite well, thank you," said Kittington.

Well, I'll be off home for the lotion for Master Tommy,” said Sniggs, "and will look in the evening to see how he is going on.'

Away went Sniggs, with this friendly promise of another visit. I left Cuthbert to settle his schemes with Kittington, to whose presence he felt it necessary to summon his two fascinating daughters-in-law, in order to give him a notion of their peculiar graces. Bessy Wells had been his pupil, so the meeting was no doubt extremely satisfactory to all parties. All I know of it was that at its termination Mr. Kittington was appointed to attend Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, and that Merman invited himself not only to be present at the performances, but to join our family circle on the then present day

"His custom always in the afternoon."

Well, this was certainly no improvement to my prospects, nor were the comfort and regularity of my establishment very much improved by the extraordinary proceedings of Cuthbert, not only as regarded his promiscuous invitations to strangers, but as related to the little nicknackeries in which he was in the habit of revelling, himself. After various attempts to describe, through Hutton, the veritable mode of dressing a kabob, or sending up a pillau, he went the length of having my cook,-I say my cook, as if, in point of fact, every thing in the house were not his-into the breakfastroom or the drawing-room, if that happened to be “headquarters" with the ladies, whom he never left; and there instruct her in the arcana of Oriental gastronomy, not the

oretically but practically, by superintending in his horizontal position the cuttings and choppings, triturations, amalgamations, and all the other botherations which he considered necessary to produce one or two dishes, his partiality for which he attributed to the circumstance of the late Mrs. Cuthbert Gurney having been particularly fond of them.

There really was something in Cuthbert's indolence which was extremely trying to the patience, or the activity, or whatever it might be, of those around him. He seemed unconsciously to glory in his, to me, melancholy inanition. He certainly was one of those of whom Johnson says, "They boast that they do nothing, and thank their stars that they have nothing to do; who sleep every night till they can sleep no longer, and rise only to take sufficient exercise to enable them to sleep again"-in this particular the likeness failed, for Cuthbert took none-" who prolong the reign of darkness by double curtains, and never see the sun but to tell him how they hate his beams: whose whole labour is to vary the posture of indulgence, and whose day differs from their night only as a couch or a chair differs from a bed."

Well, then came another worry. Harriet, first prejudiced against my poor friend Sniggs by her mother, who certainly entertained a sneaking mistrust of his professional skill, and now, in the case of becoming a mother, still more disinclined to attempt to conquer her dislike, resolved, even if she were to have no medical attendant and certainly to die, not to have Sniggs as her "doctor on the approaching occasion. I ventured to remonstrate, ran over catalogue of names of the best people in the neighbourhood who employed him; but all in vain: to her the loss of her infant sister Adelgitha, was light by comparison with the anticipation she entertained of his giving a sort of circular description to the good folks of Blissfold of all the circumstances connected with her case, whatever it might turn out to be. She afforded me the first proof of a resolution to have her own way upon this occasion. But then it was quite reasonable. She had, in the first place, no confidence in his abilities; and, in the second, she had heard him give relations of the calamities of all our neighbours, in a tone and manner which she dreaded lest he should adopt when her own indisposition became the subject of general conversation.

"A newsmonger," says Butler," is a retailer of rumour, that takes upon trust, and sells as cheap as he buys. He deals in a commodity that will not keep; for if it be not fresh, although

true in its origin, it lies on his hands and will yield nothing. True or false, it is all one to him; for novelty being the grace of both, a truth grows stale as well as a lie: and as a slight suit will last as well as a better, while the fashion holds, a lie will serve as well as truth, till new ones come up. He is little concerned whether it be good or bad, for that does not make it more or less news; and if there be any difference, he prefers the bad, because it is said to come soonest; for he would willingly bear his share in any public calamity to have the pleasure of hearing and telling it. He tells news, as men do money, with his fingers, for he assures them it comes from very good hands. The whole business of his life is like that of a spaniel,to fetch and carry, and when he does it well he is clapped on the back and fed for it; for he does not take it altogether, like a gentleman, for his pleasure: but when he lights on a considerable parcel of news, he knows where to put it off for a dinner, and quarters himself upon it, until he has eaten it out; and, by this means, he drives a trade, by retrieving the first news to truck it for the first meat in season; and, like the old Roman luxury, ransacks all seas and lands to please his palate."

Such a man Harriet set down Sniggs to be. And there are certain points upon which a woman must neither be thwarted nor disturbed. Harriet was about to assume a new character in the world-so was I; but then, dear soul, she was so much more personally concerned with the change, that the moment she expressed her decided aversion from calling Sniggs into council, I resolved that he should most certainly not be admitted. But, as one likes to live peaceably with his neighbours, and as Sniggs was, I am sure, a kind-hearted man, and, as I believe, an able practitioner, I saw at once that the only way to sooth his feelings and moderate his anger at being excluded, would be to send to London for some most extraordinary popular accoucheur, a baronet if possible, but decidedly not below the degree of knighthood, whose unquestioned claims would set to rest in a moment the uneasiness of the Blissfold apothecary, even though the magnate himself had in other days filled a simi lar situation to his own.

All these things worried me. I have a strong feeling that genius and talent are to be found in thousands of places besides the highest, if one only knew where to hit them; and that not only in medicine and surgery, but in every art and science in the world, which, without some accidental circumstance, some coincidence for which none of us are prepared, to bring them into notice, remain to