ved a _penchant_ for Sir
Patrick O'Prism."--"Tenorina, exactly," said Squire Headlong; and
became so impatient to bring the matter to a conclusion, that Mr
Chromatic undertook to communicate with his daughter immediately. The
young lady proved to be as ready as the squire, and the preliminaries
were arranged in little more than five minutes.

Mr Chromatic's words, that he imagined his daughter Graziosa had
conceived a _penchant_ for Sir Patrick O'Prism, were not lost on the
squire, who at once determined to have as many companions in the
scrape as possible, and who, as soon as he could tear himself from Mrs
Headlong elect, took three flying bounds across the room to the
baronet, and said, "So, Sir Patrick, I find you and I are going to be
married?"

"Are we?" said Sir Patrick: "then sure won't I wish you joy, and
myself too? for this is the first I have heard of it."

"Well," said Squire Headlong, "I have made up my mind to it, and you
must not disappoint me."

"To be sure I won't, if I can help it," said Sir Patrick; "and I am
very much obliged to you for taking so much trouble off my hands. And
pray, now, who is it that I am to be metamorphosing into Lady
O'Prism?"

"Miss Graziosa Chromatic," said the squire.

"Och violet and vermilion!" said Sir Patrick; "though I never thought
of it before, I dare say she will suit me as well as another: but then
you must persuade the ould Orpheus to draw out a few _notes_ of rather
a more magical description than those he is so fond of scraping on his
crazy violin."

"To be sure he shall," said the squire; and, immediately returning to
Mr Chromatic, concluded the negotiation for Sir Patrick as
expeditiously as he had done for himself.

The squire next addressed himself to Mr Escot: "Here are three couple
of us going to throw off together, with the Reverend Doctor Gaster for
whipper-in: now, I think you cannot do better than make the fourth
with Miss Cephalis; and then, as my father-in-law that is to be would
say, we shall compose a very harmonious octave."

"Indeed," said Mr Escot, "nothing would be more agreeable to both of
us than such an arrangement: but the old gentleman, since I first knew
him, has changed, like the rest of the world, very lamentably for the
worse: now, we wish to bring him to reason, if possible, though we
mean to dispense with his consent, if he should prove much longer
refractory."

"I'll settle him," said Squire Headlong; and immediately post