ress and train,
and no waist, when she was first married; a fox's brush lies over the
frame, and serves to keep the dust off that work of art.

'My library's small, says Ponto, with the most amazing impudence, 'but
well selected, my boy--well selected. I have been reading the "History
of England" all the morning.'

CHAPTER XXVII--A VISIT TO SOME COUNTRY SNOBS

We had the fish, which, as the kind reader may remember, I had brought
down in a delicate attention to Mrs. Ponto, to variegate the repast of
next day; and cod and oyster-sauce, twice laid, salt cod and scolloped
oysters, formed parts of the bill of fare until I began to fancy that
the Ponto family, like our late revered monarch George II., had a fancy
for stale fish. And about this time, the pig being consumed, we began
upon a sheep.

But how shall I forget the solemn splendour of a second course, which
was served up in great state by Stripes in a silver dish and cove; a
napkin round his dirty thumbs; and consisted of a landrail, not much
bigger than a corpulent sparrow.

'My love, will you take any game?' says Ponto, with prodigious gravity;
and stuck his fork into that little mouthful of an island in the
silver sea. Stripes, too, at intervals, dribbled out the Marsala with
a solemnity which would have done honour to a Duke's butler. The
Bamnecide's dinner to Shacabac was only one degree removed from these
solemn banquets.

As there were plenty of pretty country places close by; a comfortable
country town, with good houses of gentlefolks; a beautiful old
parsonage, close to the church whither we went (and where the Carabas
family have their ancestral carved and monumented Gothic pew), and every
appearance of good society in the neighbourhood, I rather wondered we
were not enlivened by the appearance of some of the neighbours at the
Evergreens, and asked about them.

'We can't in our position of life--we can't well associate with
the attorney's family, as I leave you to suppose,' says Mrs. Ponto,
confidentially. 'Of course not,' I answered, though I didn't know why.
'And the Doctor?' said I.

'A most excellent worthy creature,' says Mrs. P. saved Maria's
life--really a learned man; but what can one do in one's position? One
may ask one's medical man to one's table certainly: but his family, my
dear Mr. Snob!'

'Half-a-dozen little gallipots,' interposed Miss Wirt, the governess:
'he, he, he!' and the young ladies laughed in chorus.

'We only liv