re a partnership of three, dear Pa.'

The appearance of dinner here cut Bella short in one of her
disappearances: the more effectually, because it was put on under the
auspices of a solemn gentleman in black clothes and a white cravat, who
looked much more like a clergyman than THE clergyman, and seemed to
have mounted a great deal higher in the church: not to say, scaled the
steeple. This dignitary, conferring in secrecy with John Rokesmith on
the subject of punch and wines, bent his head as though stooping to
the Papistical practice of receiving auricular confession. Likewise,
on John's offering a suggestion which didn't meet his views, his face
became overcast and reproachful, as enjoining penance.

What a dinner! Specimens of all the fishes that swim in the sea, surely
had swum their way to it, and if samples of the fishes of divers
colours that made a speech in the Arabian Nights (quite a ministerial
explanation in respect of cloudiness), and then jumped out of the
frying-pan, were not to be recognized, it was only because they had all
become of one hue by being cooked in batter among the whitebait. And the
dishes being seasoned with Bliss--an article which they are sometimes
out of, at Greenwich--were of perfect flavour, and the golden drinks
had been bottled in the golden age and hoarding up their sparkles ever
since.

The best of it was, that Bella and John and the cherub had made a
covenant that they would not reveal to mortal eyes any appearance
whatever of being a wedding party. Now, the supervising dignitary, the
Archbishop of Greenwich, knew this as well as if he had performed the
nuptial ceremony. And the loftiness with which his Grace entered into
their confidence without being invited, and insisted on a show
of keeping the waiters out of it, was the crowning glory of the
entertainment.

There was an innocent young waiter of a slender form and with weakish
legs, as yet unversed in the wiles of waiterhood, and but too evidently
of a romantic temperament, and deeply (it were not too much to add
hopelessly) in love with some young female not aware of his merit.
This guileless youth, descrying the position of affairs, which even
his innocence could not mistake, limited his waiting to languishing
admiringly against the sideboard when Bella didn't want anything, and
swooping at her when she did. Him, his Grace the Archbishop perpetually
obstructed, cutting him out with his elbow in the moment of success,
d