ecropolis, Mr Dunshunner? It is my
favourite haunt of a morning. There we can wean ourselves, as it were,
from life, and, beneath the melancholy yew and cypress, anticipate the
setting star. How often there have I seen the procession--the funeral
of some very, _very_ little child"----

"Selina, my love," said Mrs Sawley, "have the kindness to ring for the
cookies."

I, as in duty bound, started up to save the fair enthusiast the
trouble, and was not sorry to observe my seat immediately occupied by
a very cadaverous gentleman, who was evidently jealous of the progress
I was rapidly making. Sawley, with an air of great mystery, informed
me that this was a Mr Dalgleish of Raxmathrapple, the representative
of an ancient Scottish family who claimed an important heritable
office. The name, I thought, was familiar to me, but there was
something in the appearance of Mr Dalgleish which, notwithstanding the
smiles of Miss Selina, rendered a rivalship in that quarter utterly
out of the question.

I hate injustice, so let me do due honour in description to the Sawley
banquet. The tea-urn most literally corresponded to its name. The
table was decked out with divers platters, containing seed-cakes cut
into rhomboids, almond biscuits, and ratafia drops; but somehow or
other they all looked clammy and damp, and, for the life of me, I
could not divest myself of the idea that the selfsame viands had
figured, not long before, as funeral refreshments at a dirgie. No such
suspicion seemed to cross the mind of M'Alcohol, who hitherto had
remained uneasily surveying his nails in a corner, but at the first
symptom of food started forwards, and was in the act of making a clean
sweep of the china, when Sawley proposed the singular preliminary of a
hymn.

The hymn was accordingly sung. I am thankful to say it was such a one
as I never heard before, or expect to hear again; and unless it was
composed by the Reverend Saunders Peden in an hour of paroxysm on the
moors, I cannot conjecture the author. After this original symphony,
tea was discussed, and after tea, to my amazement, more hot brandy and
water than I ever remember to have seen circulated at the most
convivial party. Of course this effected a radical change in the
spirits and conversation of the circle. It was again my lot to be
placed by the side of the fascinating Selina, whose sentimentality
gradually thawed away beneath the influence of sundry sips, which she
accepted with a del