little pinch of comfort doled out to granny, and gratefully
inhaled by her in the darkness. Don't you remember what
traditions there used to be of chests of plate, bulses of
diamonds, laces of inestimable value, sent out of the country
privately by the old Queen, to enrich certain relatives in M-ckl-
nb-rg Str-l-tz? Not all the treasure went. Non omnis moritur.
A poor old palsied thing at midnight is made happy sometimes as
she lifts her shaking old hand to her nose. Gliding noiselessly
among the beds where lie the poor creatures huddled in their
cheerless dormitory, I fancy an old ghost with a snuff-box that
does not creak. "There, Goody, take of my rappee. You will not
sneeze, and I shall not say 'God bless you.' But you will think
kindly of old Queen Charlotte, won't you? Ah! I had a many
troubles, a many troubles. I was a prisoner almost so much as
you are. I had to eat boiled mutton every day: entre nous, I
abominated it. But I never complained. I swallowed it. I made
the best of a hard life. We have all our burdens to bear. But
hark! I hear the cock-crow, and snuff the morning air." And
with this the royal ghost vanishes up the chimney -- if there be
a chimney in that dismal harem, where poor old Twoshoes and her
companions pass their nights -- their dreary nights, their
restless nights, their cold long nights, shared in what glum
companionship, illumined by what a feeble taper!

"Did I understand you, my good Twoshoes, to say that your mother
was seven-and-twenty years old when you were born, and that she
married your esteemed father when she herself was twenty-five?
1745, then, was the date of your dear mother's birth. I daresay
her father was absent in the Low Countries, with his Royal
Highness the Duke of Cumberland, under whom he had the honour of