Linden!"

"Well, my love," said the stock-jobber, "I believe I must be off. Here
Tom," Tom (Mr. de Warens had just entered the room with some more hot
water, to weaken still further "the poor remains of what was once"--the
tea!), "Tom, just run out and stop the coach; it will be by in five
minutes."

"Have not I prayed and besought you, many and many a time, Mr.
Copperas," said the lady, rebukingly, "not to call De Warens by his
Christian name? Don't you know that all people in genteel life, who only
keep one servant, invariably call him by his surname, as if he were the
butler, you know?"

"Now, that is too good, my love," said Copperas. "I will call poor Tom
by any surname you please, but I really can't pass him off for a butler!
Ha--ha--ha--you must excuse me there, my love!"

"And pray, why not, Mr. Copperas? I have known many a butler bungle
more at a cork than he does; and pray tell me who did you ever see wait
better at dinner?"

"He wait at dinner, my love! it is not he who waits."

"Who then, Mr. Copperas?"

"Why we, my love; it's we who wait for dinner; but that's the cook's
fault, not his."

"Pshaw! Mr. Copperas; Adolphus, my love, sit upright, darling."

Here De Warens cried from the bottom of the stairs,--"Measter, the coach
be coming up."

"There won't be room for it to turn then," said the facetious Mr.
Copperas, looking round the apartment as if he took the words literally.

"What coach is it, boy?"

Now that was not the age in which coaches scoured the city every half
hour, and Mr. Copperas knew the name of the coach as well as he knew his
own.

"It be the Swallow coach, sir."

"Oh, very well: then since I have swallowed in the roll, I will now roll
in the Swallow--ha--ha--ha! Good-by, Mr. Linden."

No sooner had the witty stock-jobber left the room than Mrs. Copperas
seemed to expand into a new existence. "My husband, sir," said she,
apologetically, "is so odd, but he's an excellent sterling character;
and that, you know, Mr. Linden, tells more in the bosom of a family than
all the shining qualities which captivate the imagination. I am sure,
Mr. Linden, that the moralist is right in admonishing us to prefer the
gold to the tinsel. I have now been married some years, and every year
seems happier than the last; but then, Mr. Linden, it is such a pleasure
to contemplate the growing graces of the sweet pledge of our mutual
love.--Adolphus, my dear, keep your feet still, and take your h