e to look out for a wife.

Having still much of the family pride in his composition, he resolved
not to muddle the blood of the Witheringtons by any cross from Cateaton
Street or Mincing Lane; and after a proper degree of research, he
selected the daughter of a Scotch earl, who went to London with a bevy
of nine in a Leith smack to barter blood for wealth. Mr. Witherington
being so unfortunate as to be the first comer, had the pick of the nine
ladies by courtesy; his choice was light-haired, blue-eyed, a little
freckled, and very tall, by no means bad-looking, and standing on the
list in the Family Bible No. IV. From this union Mr. Witherington had
issue: first, a daughter, christened Moggy, whom we shall soon have to
introduce to our readers as a spinster of forty-seven; and second,
Antony Alexander Witherington, Esquire, whom we just now have left in a
very comfortable position, and in a very brown study.

Mr. Witherington senior persuaded his son to enter the banking-house,
and, as a dutiful son, he entered it every day: but he did nothing more,
having made the fortunate discovery that 'his father was born before
him'; or, in other words, that his father had plenty of money, and would
be necessitated to leave it behind him.

As Mr. Witherington senior had always studied comfort, his son had early
imbibed the same idea, and carried his feelings, in that respect, to a
much greater excess: he divided things into comfortable and
uncomfortable. One fine day Lady Mary Witherington, after paying all the
household bills, paid the debt of Nature; that is, she died: her husband
paid the undertaker's bill, so it is to be presumed that she was buried.

Mr. Witherington senior shortly afterwards had a stroke of apoplexy,
which knocked him down. Death, who has no feelings of honour, struck him
when down. And Mr. Witherington, after having lain a few days in bed,
was by a second stroke laid in the same vault as Lady Mary Witherington;
and Mr. Witherington junior (our Mr. Witherington), after deducting
L40,000 for his sister's fortune, found himself in possession of a clear
L8000 per annum, and an excellent house in Finsbury Square. Mr.
Witherington considered this a comfortable income, and he therefore
retired altogether from business.

During the lifetime of his parents he had been witness to one or two
matrimonial scenes, which had induced him to put down matrimony as one
of the things not comfortable; therefore he remained a