imed any wilful agency in this disastrous state of
things, and regretted it very much.

'Your pious pa, too,' said Mrs Todgers. 'There's a loss! My dear Miss
Pecksniffs, your pa is a perfect missionary of peace and love.'

Entertaining an uncertainty as to the particular kind of love supposed
to be comprised in Mr Pecksniff's mission, the young ladies received the
compliment rather coldly.

'If I dared,' said Mrs Todgers, perceiving this, 'to violate a
confidence which has been reposed in me, and to tell you why I must beg
of you to leave the little door between your room and mine open tonight,
I think you would be interested. But I mustn't do it, for I promised Mr
Jinkins faithfully, that I would be as silent as the tomb.'

'Dear Mrs Todgers! What can you mean?'

'Why, then, my sweet Miss Pecksniffs,' said the lady of the house; 'my
own loves, if you will allow me the privilege of taking that freedom on
the eve of our separation, Mr Jinkins and the gentlemen have made up
a little musical party among themselves, and DO intend, in the dead of
this night, to perform a serenade upon the stairs outside the door. I
could have wished, I own,' said Mrs Todgers, with her usual foresight,
'that it had been fixed to take place an hour or two earlier; because
when gentlemen sit up late they drink, and when they drink they're not
so musical, perhaps, as when they don't. But this is the arrangement;
and I know you will be gratified, my dear Miss Pecksniffs, by such a
mark of their attention.'

The young ladies were at first so much excited by the news, that they
vowed they couldn't think of going to bed until the serenade was over.
But half an hour of cool waiting so altered their opinion that they not
only went to bed, but fell asleep; and were, moreover, not ecstatically
charmed to be awakened some time afterwards by certain dulcet strains
breaking in upon the silent watches of the night.

It was very affecting--very. Nothing more dismal could have been desired
by the most fastidious taste. The gentleman of a vocal turn was head
mute, or chief mourner; Jinkins took the bass; and the rest took
anything they could get. The youngest gentleman blew his melancholy into
a flute. He didn't blow much out of it, but that was all the better.
If the two Miss Pecksniffs and Mrs Todgers had perished by spontaneous
combustion, and the serenade had been in honour of their ashes, it would
have been impossible to surpass the unutterable des