, on Chewsdy there was the same game; ditto on Wensday; only, when
we called there, who should we see but our father, Lord Crabs, who was
waiving his hand to Miss Kicksey, and saying HE SHOULD BE BACK TO DINNER
AT 7, just as me and master came up the stares. There was no admittns
for us though. "Bah! bah! never mind," says my lord, taking his
son affeckshnately by the hand. "What, two strings to your bow; ay,
Algernon? The dowager a little jealous, miss a little lovesick. But my
lady's fit of anger will vanish, and I promise you, my boy, that you
shall see your fair one to-morrow."

And so saying, my lord walked master down stares, looking at him as
tender and affeckshnat, and speaking to him as sweet as posbill. Master
did not know what to think of it. He never new what game his old father
was at; only he somehow felt that he had got his head in a net, in spite
of his suxess on Sunday. I knew it--I knew it quite well, as soon as I
saw the old genlmn igsammin him by a kind of smile which came over his
old face, and was somethink betwigst the angellic and the direbollicle.

But master's dowts were cleared up nex day and every thing was bright
again. At brexfast, in comes a note with inclosier, boath of witch I
here copy:--

No. IX.

"Thursday morning.

"Victoria, Victoria! Mamma has yielded at last; not her consent to our
union, but her consent to receive you as before; and has promised
to forget the past. Silly woman, how could she ever think of you as
anything but the lover of your Matilda? I am in a whirl of delicious
joy and passionate excitement. I have been awake all this long night,
thinking of thee, my Algernon, and longing for the blissful hour of
meeting.

"Come! M. G."

This is the inclosier from my lady:--

"I will not tell you that your behavior on Sunday did not deeply shock
me. I had been foolish enough to think of other plans, and to fancy your
heart (if you had any) was fixed elsewhere than on one at whose foibles
you have often laughed with me, and whose person at least cannot have
charmed you.

"My step-daughter will not, I presume, marry without at least going
through the ceremony of asking my consent; I cannot, as yet, give it.
Have I not reason to doubt whether she will be happy in trusting herself
to you?

"But she is of age, and has the right to receive in her own house all
those who may be agreeable to her,--certainly you, who are likely to be
one day so nearly connected with