s he could summon
sufficient energy to move, but, perceiving Cumberland approach her for
that purpose, he appeared to recollect himself, smiled slightly as if at
what he had been about to do, and, taking me by the arm, said:--

"Come, Master Curlylocks, you shall be my lady, and a very pretty girl
you would make, too, if you were properly bemuslined"; adding, as we
went downstairs together, "You and I shall be great friends, I'm sure;
I like your face particularly. What a lot of stairs there are in this
house! they'll tire me to death."

When we returned to the pupils' room after dinner Lawless found, lying
on the table, the note Dr. Mildman had written in such a mysterious
manner before he left home in the morning, and proceeded to open it
forthwith. Scarcely had he glanced his eye over it, when he was seized
with so violent a fit of laughter, that I expected every moment to see
him fall out of his chair. As soon as he had in some measure recovered
the power of speaking he exclaimed:--

"Here, listen to this! and tell me if it is not the very best thing you
ever heard in your lives ". He then read as follows:--

"'It is not without much pain that I bring myself to write this note;
but I feel that I should not be doing my duty towards your excellent
father, if I were to allow such extreme misconduct on the part of
his son to pass unreproved. I know not towards what scene of vulgar
dissipation you might be directing your steps, but the simple fact
(to which I was myself witness) of your leaving my house _in the low
disguise of a carter's smock-frock_, affords in itself sufficient proof
that your associates must belong to a class of persons utterly unfitted
for the companionship of a gentleman. Let me hope this hint may be
enough, and that conduct so thoroughly disgraceful in one brought up as
you have been may not occur again. I presume I need scarcely say that,
in the event of your ~52~~disregarding my wishes upon this point, the
only course left open to me would be to expel you, a measure to which it
would deeply grieve me to be obliged to resort.'"

His voice was here drowned by a chorus of laughter from all present
who were aware of the true state of the case, which lasted without
interruption for several minutes. At length Lawless observed:--

"I'll tell you what, it will be a death-blow to Smithson; a Macintosh
made by him to be taken for a smock-frock! he'll never recover it ".

"Mildman might well look lik