e thankful," and to cry
_encore_ to a frothing tankard of the best ale to be obtained within the
chimes of Bow bells.

Upon a table, green as the privet and holly that formed the walls of the
bower in which it was placed, stood a great china bowl, one of those
leviathan memorials of bygone wassailry which we may sometimes
espy--reversed in token of its desuetude--perched on the top of an old
japanned closet, but seldom, if ever, encountered in its proper position
at the genial board. All the appliances of festivity were at hand.
Pipes and rummers strewed the board. Perfume, subtle, yet mellow, as of
pine and lime, exhaled from out the bowl, and, mingling with the scent
of a neighboring bed of mignonette and the subdued odor of the Indian
weed, formed altogether as delectable an atmosphere of sweets as one
could wish to inhale on a melting August afternoon. So, at least,
thought the inmates of the arbor; nor did they by any means confine
themselves to the gratification of a single sense. The ambrosial
contents of the china bowl proved as delicious to the taste as its
bouquet was grateful to the smell; while the eyesight was soothed by
reposing on the smooth sward of a bowling-green spread out immediately
before it, or in dwelling upon gently undulating meads, terminating, at
about a mile's distance, in the woody, spire-crowned heights of
Hampstead.

At the left of the table was seated, or rather lounged, a slender,
elegant-looking young man, with dark, languid eyes, sallow complexion,
and features wearing that peculiarly pensive expression often
communicated by dissipation; an expression which, we regret to say, is
sometimes found more pleasing than it ought to be in the eyes of the
gentle sex. Habited in a light summer riding-dress, fashioned according
to the taste of the time, of plain and unpretending material, and rather
under than overdressed, he had, perhaps, on that very account, perfectly
the air of a gentleman. There was, altogether, an absence of pretension
about him, which, combined with great apparent self-possession,
contrasted very forcibly with the vulgar assurance of his showy
companions. The figure of the youth was slight, even to fragility,
giving little outward manifestation of the vigor of frame he in reality
possessed. This spark was a no less distinguished personage than Tom
King, a noted high-tobygloak of his time, who obtained, from his
appearance and address, the _sobriquet_ of the "Gentleman H