open the door, announced Mr.
Brown; that gentleman entered, with a sedate but cheerful air. "Well,
Mrs. Copperas, your servant; any table-linen wanted? Mr. Copperas, how
do you do? I can give you a hint about the stocks. Master Copperas,
you are looking bravely; don't you think he wants some new pinbefores,
ma'am? But Mr. Clarence Linden, where is he? Not up yet, I dare say. Ah,
the present generation is a generation of sluggards, as his worthy aunt,
Mrs. Minden, used to say."

"I am sure," said Mrs. Copperas, with a disdainful toss of the head,
"I know nothing about the young man. He has left us; a very mysterious
piece of business indeed, Mr. Brown; and now I think of it, I can't help
saying that we were by no means pleased with your introduction: and, by
the by, the chairs you bought for us at the sale were a mere take-in, so
slight that Mr. Walruss broke two of them by only sitting down."

"Indeed, ma'am?" said Mr. Brown, with expostulating gravity; "but then
Mr. Walruss is so very corpulent. But the young gentleman, what of him?"
continued the broker, artfully turning from the point in dispute.

"Lord, Mr. Brown, don't ask me: it was the unluckiest step we ever made
to admit him into the bosom of our family; quite a viper, I assure you;
absolutely robbed poor Adolphus."

"Lord help us!" said Mr. Brown, with a look which "cast a browner
horror" o'er the room, "who would have thought it? and such a pretty
young man!"

"Well," said Mr. Copperas, who, occupied in finishing the buttered cake,
had hitherto kept silence, "I must be off. Tom--I mean de Warens--have
you stopped the coach?"

"Yees, sir."

"And what coach is it?"

"It be the Swallow, sir."

"Oh, very well. And now, Mr. Brown, having swallowed in the roll, I
will e'en roll in the Swallow--Ha, ha, ha!--At any rate," thought Mr.
Copperas, as he descended the stairs, "he has not heard that before."

"Ha, ha!" gravely chuckled Mr. Brown, "what a very facetious, lively
gentleman Mr. Copperas is. But touching this ungrateful young man, Mr.
Linden, ma'am?"

"Oh, don't tease me, Mr. Brown, I must see after my domestics: ask Mr.
Talbot, the old miser in the next house, the havarr, as the French say."

"Well, now," said Mr. Brown, following the good lady down stairs, "how
distressing for me! and to say that he was Mrs. Minden's nephew, too!"

But Mr. Brown's curiosity was not so easily satisfied, and finding Mr.
de Warens leaning over the "front" gate, a