t
he sees all his cares fly, and nothing but joys in the wreathed curls of
smoke betaking themselves up the chimney:--he sees Messrs. Blow and
Grumble, the eminent organ-builders, making a fortune by his "new
movement;" having purchased and patented it: he has found a publisher
for his church music, and sold his old opera. Captain de Camp has
vanished in smoke--he has exploded of spontaneous combustion,--they find
him all deceit, leaving a glass eye and a cork leg. Mr. Latimer gets the
Colonial Bishopric of Bushantee, in New Zealand, and cuts Miss Jemima.
Mr. Wellesley having gone to India for glory, returns with it,--a hook,
and a patch over his eye. Miss Angelina vows to die a virgin. Mr. Brown
says to Mr. Spohf, "my son!"--Mr. Spohf says to Mr. Brown, "my father!"
Mr. Strap is standing in triumph upon a pyramid of "carpets to beat,"
viewing a lesser one of "boots to brush;" having been entrusted with
more "messages" than mortal ever could "deliver;" whilst innumerable
vans, bearing the name of Strap, traverse innumerable roads in "Town and
Country." Mrs. Strap, dressed in a plain plum silk, turns a mahogany
mangle, and gets up nothing but "fine things." Ichabod has cut the
choir, and made his _debut_ in an opera as Herr Strapii, a perfect
triumph.

But here we will leave Mr. Spohf's reverie--for Victoria and reality;
where the company is arriving to the annual dinner, and sitting about
the drawing-room, looking as happy as patients at a dentist's; or
festive, as disappointed toadeaters at the funeral of an opulent
relative, who had left all his property to found an asylum for decayed
postboys--after leading everybody to expect the lion's share of it:--the
guests, for want of more exciting topics, admiring the gimcracks they
admired a year ago; thinking the portrait of Mr. Brown--"done," twenty
years since, at a portrait club,--a splendid likeness, and that the
original grows younger (query, richer?); stating truths and untruths
about the weather; inquiring energetically after each other's
health--not caring for the answers; with other homely pleasantries, too
numerous to mention; until some of the juveniles--the only ones who
really seem at home--espy from the window a loaded parcel-cart; this
they observe as funny on a Sunday (little thinking, at that moment, it
was Tuesday). Here Mr. Brown descends, to hold an altercation with the
guard of that cart, who makes light of a huge hamper of game; whilst the
guests at t