wiveller had another, which promised to be
equally enduring, and to lighten his position considerably.

He found favour in the eyes of Miss Sally Brass. Let not the light
scorners of female fascination erect their ears to listen to a new tale
of love which shall serve them for a jest; for Miss Brass, however
accurately formed to be beloved, was not of the loving kind. That
amiable virgin, having clung to the skirts of the Law from her earliest
youth; having sustained herself by their aid, as it were, in her first
running alone, and maintained a firm grasp upon them ever since; had
passed her life in a kind of legal childhood. She had been remarkable,
when a tender prattler for an uncommon talent in counterfeiting the
walk and manner of a bailiff: in which character she had learned to tap
her little playfellows on the shoulder, and to carry them off to
imaginary sponging-houses, with a correctness of imitation which was
the surprise and delight of all who witnessed her performances, and
which was only to be exceeded by her exquisite manner of putting an
execution into her doll's house, and taking an exact inventory of the
chairs and tables. These artless sports had naturally soothed and
cheered the decline of her widowed father: a most exemplary gentleman
(called 'old Foxey' by his friends from his extreme sagacity,) who
encouraged them to the utmost, and whose chief regret, on finding that
he drew near to Houndsditch churchyard, was, that his daughter could
not take out an attorney's certificate and hold a place upon the roll.
Filled with this affectionate and touching sorrow, he had solemnly
confided her to his son Sampson as an invaluable auxiliary; and from
the old gentleman's decease to the period of which we treat, Miss Sally
Brass had been the prop and pillar of his business.

It is obvious that, having devoted herself from infancy to this one
pursuit and study, Miss Brass could know but little of the world,
otherwise than in connection with the law; and that from a lady gifted
with such high tastes, proficiency in those gentler and softer arts in
which women usually excel, was scarcely to be looked for. Miss Sally's
accomplishments were all of a masculine and strictly legal kind. They
began with the practice of an attorney and they ended with it. She was
in a state of lawful innocence, so to speak. The law had been her
nurse. And, as bandy-legs or such physical deformities in children are
held to be the