matters connected with the heart.

Our pen must have been the pinion of a wild goose, or why these continued
digressions?

Agamemnon's troubles commenced with the first cough of Mrs. Pilcher on the
door-mat. Mrs. P. was the monthly nurse, and monthly nurses always have a
short cough. Whether this phenomenon arises from the obesity consequent
upon arm-chairs and good living, or from an habitual intimation that they
are present, and have not received half-a-crown, or a systematic
declaration that the throat is dry, and would not object to a gargle of
gin, and perhaps a little water, or--but there is no use hunting
conjecture, when you are all but certain of not catching it.

Mrs. Pilcher was "the moral of a nurse;" she was about forty-eight and
had, according to her own account, "been the mother of eighteen lovely
babes, born in wedlock," though her most intimate friends had never been
introduced to more than one young gentleman, with a nose like a wart, and
hair like a scrubbing-brush. When he made his _debut_, he was attired in a
suit of blue drugget, with the pewter order of the parish of St. Clement
on his bosom; and rumour declared that he owed his origin to half-a-crown
a week, paid every Saturday. Mrs. Pilcher weighed about thirteen stone,
including her bundle, and a pint medicine-bottle, which latter article she
invariably carried in her dexter pocket, filled with a strong tincture of
juniper berries, and extract of cloves. This mixture had been prescribed
to her for what she called a "sinkingness," which afflicted her about 10
A.M., 11 A.M. (dinner), 2 P.M., 3 P.M. 4 P.M. 5 P.M. (tea), 7 P.M., 8 P.M.
(supper), 10 P.M., and at uncertain intervals during the night.

Mrs. Pilcher was a martyr to a delicate appetite, for she could never