arent, laying down her embroidery. "What an
example you set to this Innocent!"

"Like to see 'em fight, my lady!" cries the Innocent, rubbing his hands.

"At her, Flora! Worry her, Dora! To it again, you little rogues!" says
facetious papa. 'Tis good sport, ain't it, Miley?"

"Oh, Sir Miles! Oh, my children! These disputes are unseemly. They tear
a fond mother's heart," says mamma, with majestic action, though bearing
the laceration of her bosom with much seeming equanimity. "What cause
for thankfulness ought we to have that watchful parents have prevented
any idle engagements between you and your misguided cousin. If we have
been mistaken in him, is it not a mercy that we have found out our error
in time? If either of you had any preference for him, your excellent
good sense, my loves, will teach you to overcome, to eradicate, the vain
feeling. That we cherished and were kind to him can never be a source of
regret. 'Tis a proof of our good-nature. What we have to regret, I fear,
is, that your cousin should have proved unworthy of our kindness, and,
coming away from the society of gamblers, play-actors, and the like,
should have brought contamination--pollution, I had almost said--into
this pure family!"

"Oh, bother mamma's sermons!" says Flora, as my lady pursues a harangue
of which we only give the commencement here, but during which papa,
whistling, gently quits the room on tiptoe, whilst the artless Miles
junior winds his top and pegs it under the robes of his sisters. It has
done humming, and staggered and tumbled over, and expired in its usual
tipsy manner, long ere Lady Warrington has finished her sermon.

"Were you listening to me, my child?" she asks, laying her hand on her
darling's head.

"Yes, mother," says he, with the whipcord in his mouth, and proceeding
to wind up his sportive engine. "You was a-saying that Harry was very
poor now, and that we oughtn't to help him. That's what you was saying;
wasn't it, madam?"

"My poor child, thou wilt understand me better when thou art older!"
says mamma, turning towards that ceiling to which her eyes always have
recourse.

"Get out, you little wretch!" cries one of the sisters. The artless one
has pegged his top at Dora's toes, and laughs with the glee of merry
boyhood at his sister's discomfiture.

But what is this? Who comes here? Why does Sir Miles return to the
drawing-room, and why does Tom Claypool, who strides after the Baronet,
wear a countenance