er part of its contents had by this time been
shaken and seizing the dish of cakes with a sudden jerk, deposited
one-half of them in the lady's lap, and the other half on the carpet.

"Tell me, where is fancy bre_a_d?" said Mr Horatio Slap'emup, who was a
wit in his own small way, pointing to the cakes, which our hero was
endeavouring to bring together again from the different corners into
which they had wandered. A general laugh greeted him on every side as he
rose from his knees covered with confusion. He looked at the fair Jemima
as he did so. There was not the vestige of a smile on her face. "Good
kind soul! _she_ does not join in the vulgar mirth of these unfeeling
creatures!" thought the unhappy Silky. "She pities me, and pity is akin
to love." It did not strike him that there might be another reason for
her gravity. The spilled tea and greasy cheesecake had spoiled her white
muslin dress irremediably, for that night at least--a circumstance
calculated certainly to make any young lady melancholy enough; but this
never entered the brain of Mr Simon Silky. Happy man!

"Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise."

With some difficulty he regained his chair, after stumbling over a
footstool, and crushing the tail of a King Charles cocker, that was
snorting on the hearthrug in all the offensiveness of canine obesity.
His distress was at its climax.

"When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions,"

thought he, recurring once more to the Beauties of Shakspere. His ears
felt as if they had been newly scalded, and objects floated in hazy
confusion before his eyes. He commenced sipping his tea with desperate
energy, wishing for a moment that it had been so much prussic acid. The
patter of many voices sounded in his ears. They must be talking of him,
"for they laughed consumedly;" and that confounded Slap'emup was
obviously getting up a reputation for wit by cutting minute jokes at his
expense.

"You've been at the Exhibition, Mr Silky," said Mrs Greenwood, recalling
him from the state of mental imbecility into which he was fast sinking.

"The Exhibition, you said, ma'am! Yes, yes, certainly, the Exhibition.
Oh yes!" rejoined Mr Silky, struggling to concentrate his scattered
faculties.

"Well, what is your opinion about the portrait?" continued his hostess.

"Portrait, really--which of them--there's so many?"

"Why, Mr Silky, what _has_ come over you to-night? The ladies have been
lik