ain is
a bargain; if I share thy coats, thou must divide my breeches' pocket,
Harry; that is but fair dealing!" Again and again Harry swore there
never was such a brother on earth. How he rattled his horses over the
road! How pleased and proud he was to drive such a brother! They came
to Kensington in famous high spirits; and Gumbo's thunder upon Lord
Castlewood's door was worthy of the biggest footman in all St. James's.

Only my Lady Castlewood and her daughter Lady Fanny were in the room
into which our young gentlemen were ushered. Will had no particular
fancy to face Harry, my lord was not dressed, Maria had her reasons
for being away, at least till her eyes were dried. When we drive up to
friends' houses nowadays in our coaches-and-six, when John carries up
our noble names, when, finally, we enter the drawing-room with our
best hat and best Sunday smile foremost, does it ever happen that we
interrupt a family row! that we come simpering and smiling in, and
stepping over the delusive ashes of a still burning domestic heat? that
in the interval between the hall-door and the drawing-room, Mrs., Mr.,
and the Misses Jones have grouped themselves in a family tableau;
this girl artlessly arranging flowers in a vase, let us say; that one
reclining over an illuminated work of devotion; mamma on the sofa, with
the butcher's and grocer's book pushed under the cushion, some elegant
work in her hand, and a pretty little foot pushed out advantageously;
while honest Jones, far from saying, "Curse that Brown, he is always
calling here!" holds out a kindly hand, shows a pleased face, and
exclaims, "What, Brown my boy, delighted to see you! Hope you've come
to lunch!" I say, does it ever happen to us to be made the victims of
domestic artifices, the spectators of domestic comedies got up for our
special amusement? Oh, let us be thankful, not only for faces, but
for masks! not only for honest welcome, but for hypocrisy, which hides
unwelcome things from us! Whilst I am talking, for instance, in this
easy, chatty way, what right have you, my good sir, to know what is
really passing in my mind? It may be that I am racked with gout, or
that my eldest son has just sent me in a thousand pounds' worth of
college-bills, or that I am writhing under an attack of the Stoke Pogis
Sentinel, which has just been sent me under cover, or that there is a
dreadfully scrappy dinner, the evident remains of a party to which I
didn't invite you, and yet I