. Mrs. B.'s closets
for what you know are stuffed with skeletons. Look there under the
sofa-cushion. Is that merely Missy's doll, or is it the limb of
a stifled Cupid peeping out? What do you suppose are those ashes
smouldering in the grate?--Very likely a suttee has been offered up
there just before you came in: a faithful heart has been burned out upon
a callous corpse, and you are looking on the cineri doloso. You see B.
and his wife receiving their company before dinner. Gracious powers! Do
you know that that bouquet which she wears is a signal to Captain C.,
and that he will find a note under the little bronze Shakespeare on
the mantelpiece in the study? And with all this you go up and say
some uncommonly neat thing (as you fancy) to Mrs. B. about the weather
(clever dog!), or about Lady E.'s last party (fashionable buck!), or
about the dear children in the nursery (insinuating rogue!). Heaven and
earth, my good sir, how can you tell that B. is not going to pitch all
the children out of the nursery window this very night, or that his lady
has not made an arrangement for leaving them, and running off with
the Captain? How do you know that those footmen are not disguised
bailiffs?--that yonder large-looking butler (really a skeleton) is not
the pawnbroker's man? and that there are not skeleton rotis and entrees
under every one of the covers? Look at their feet peeping from under the
tablecloth. Mind how you stretch out your own lovely little slippers,
madam, lest you knock over a rib or two. Remark the death's-head moths
fluttering among the flowers. See, the pale winding-sheets gleaming in
the wax-candles! I know it is an old story, and especially that this
preacher has yelled vanitas vanitatum five hundred times before. I can't
help always falling upon it, and cry out with particular loudness and
wailing, and become especially melancholy, when I see a dead love tied
to a live love. Ha! I look up from my desk, across the street: and there
come in Mr. and Mrs. D. from their walk in Kensington Gardens. How she
hangs on him! how jolly and happy he looks, as the children frisk round!
My poor dear benighted Mrs. D., there is a Regent's Park as well as
a Kensington Gardens in the world. Go in, fond wretch! Smilingly lay
before him what you know he likes for dinner. Show him the children's
copies and the reports of their masters. Go with Missy to the piano, and
play your artless duet together; and fancy you are happy!

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