ile
across the breakfast table at Magnolia, who was rattling away as usual,
and the old major who was chuckling at her impudent mischief over his
buttered toast and tea.

'Why, mother dear,' cried Mag suddenly, 'what the plague ails your
pretty face? Did you ever see the like? It's for all the world like a
bad batter pudding! I lay a crown, now, that was a bill. Was it a bill?
Come now, Mullikins (a term of endearment for mother). Show us the note.
It is too bad, you poor dear, old, handsome, bothered angel, you should
be fretted and tormented out of your looks and your health, by them
dirty shopkeepers' bills, when a five-pound note, I'm certain sure, 'id
pay every mothers skin o' them, and change to spare!' And the elegant
Magnolia, whose soiclainet and Norwich crape petticoat were unpaid for,
darted a glance of reproach full upon the major's powdered head, the top
of which was cleverly presented to receive it, as he swallowed in haste
his cup of tea, and rising suddenly, for his purse had lately suffered
in the service of the ladies, and wanted rest--

'Tis nothing at all but that confounded egg,' he said, raising that
untasted delicacy a little towards his nose. 'Why the divil will you go
on buying our eggs from that dirty old sinner, Poll Delany?' And he
dropped it from its cup plump into the slop-basin.

'A then maybe it was,' said poor Mrs. Mac, smiling as well as she could;
'but I'm better.'

'No you're not, Mullikins,' interposed Magnolia impatiently. 'There's
Toole crossing the street, will I call him up?'

'Not for the world, Maggy darling. I'd have to pay him, and where's the
money to come from?'

The major did not hear, and was coughing besides; and recollecting that
he had a word for the adjutant's ear, took his sword off the peg where
it hung, and his cocked hat, and vanished in a twinkling.

'Pay Toole, indeed! nonsense, mother,' and up went the window.

'Good-morrow to your nightcap, doctor!'

'And the top of the morning to you, my pretty Miss chattering Mag, up on
your perch there,' responded the physician.

'And what in the world brings you out this way at breakfast time, and
where are you going?--Oh! goosey, goosey gander, where do you wander?'

'Up stairs, if you let me,' said Toole, with a flourish of his hand, and
a gallant grin, 'and to my lady's chamber.'

'And did you hear the news?' demanded Miss Mag.

The doctor glanced over his shoulder, and seeing the coast clear, he was
by