mily when they heard of this
MESALLIANCE. Mrs. Harley Baker never speaks of her daughter now but
with tears in her eyes, and as a ruined creature. Miss Welbeck says, 'I
consider that man a villain;' and has denounced poor good-natured Mrs.
Perkins as a swindler, at whose ball the young people met for the first
time.

Mr. and Mrs. Gray, meanwhile, live in Gray's Inn Lane aforesaid, with
a maid-servant and a nurse, whose hands are very full, and in a most
provoking and unnatural state of happiness. They have never once thought
of crying about their dinner, like the wretchedly puling and Snobbish
womankind of my favourite Snob Aubrey, of 'Ten Thousand a Year;' but,
on the contrary, accept such humble victuals as fate awards them with a
most perfect and thankful good grace--nay, actually have a portion for a
hungry friend at times--as the present writer can gratefully testify.

I was mentioning these dinners, and some admirable lemon puddings which
Mrs. Gray makes, to our mutual friend the great Mr. Goldmore, the East
India Director, when that gentleman's face assumed an expression
of almost apoplectic terror, and he gasped out, 'What! Do they give
dinners?' He seemed to think it a crime and a wonder that such people
should dine at all, and that it was their custom to huddle round their
kitchen-fire over a bone and a crust. Whenever he meets them in society,
it is a matter of wonder to him (and he always expresses his surprise
very loud) how the lady can appear decently dressed, and the man have an
unpatched coat to his back. I have heard him enlarge upon this poverty
before the whole room at the 'Conflagrative Club,' to which he and I and
Gray have the honour to belong.

We meet at the Club on most days. At half-past four, Goldmore arrives
in St. James's Street, from the City, and you may see him reading the
evening papers in the bow-window of the Club, which enfilades
Pall Mall--a large plethoric man, with a bunch of seals in a large
bow-windowed light waistcoat. He has large coat-tails, stuffed with
agents' letters and papers about companies of which he is a Director.
His seals jingle as he walks. I wish I had such a man for an uncle, and
that he himself were childless. I would love and cherish him, and be
kind to him.

At six o'clock in the full season, when all the world is in St. James's
Street, and the carriages are cutting in and out among the cabs on the
stand, and the tufted dandies are showing their listless