s wife?'"

"Wid pleasure, Misther Doran," replied Dandy, adjusting his dulcimer.
"Come now, start, and I'm wid you."

The performance was scarcely finished, when a sob or two was heard from
Alley, who, during this ebullition of the grazier's, had been nursing
her wrath to keep it warm, as Burns says.

"I'm not without friends and protectors, Mr. Doran--that won't see me
rantinized in a mail-coach, and mocked and made little of--whereof I
have a strong back, as you'll soon find, and a faction that will make you
sup sorrow yet."

All this virtuous indignation was lost, however, on the honest grazier,
who had scarcely concluded the "Red-haired man's wife," ere he fell fast
asleep, in which state he remained--having simply changed the style
and character of his melody, the execution of the latter being equally
masterly--until they reached the hotel at which the coach always stopped
in the metropolis.

The weather, for the fortnight preceding, had been genial, mild, and
beautiful. For some time before they reached the city, that gradual
withdrawing of darkness began to take place, which resembles the
disappearance of sorrow from a heavy heart, and harbinges to the world
the return of cheerfulness and light. The dim, spectral paleness of the
eastern sky by degrees received a clearer and healthier tinge, just as
the wan cheek of an invalid assumes slowly, but certainly, the glow of
returning health. Early as it was, an odd individual was visible here
and there, and it may, be observed, that at a very early hour every
person visible in the streets is characterized by a chilly and careworn
appearance, looking, with scarcely an exception, both solitary and sad,
just as if they had not a single friend on earth, but, on the contrary,
were striving to encounter; struggles and difficulties which they were
incompetent to meet.

As our travellers entered the city, that bygone class who, as guardians
of the night, were appointed to preserve the public peace, every one of
them a half felon and whole accomplice, were seen to pace slowly along,
their poles under their left arm, their hands mutually thrust into the
capacious cuffs of their watchcoats, and each with a frowzy woollen
nightcap under his hat. Here and there a staggering toper might be
seen on his way home from the tavern brawl or the midnight debauch,
advancing, or attempting to advance, as if he wanted to trace Hogarth's
line of beauty. From some quarters the wild and r