gates are so like each other, one never knows a house till after
close observation. On entering I passed over a plat of grass, and
piercing a wooden tenement by a dark passage, found myself in a
three-sided court, where several persons were sitting on rush-bottomed
chairs.

F---- came forward, took both my hands in his, and then presented me
to the company. On being seated, I exchanged salutations, and then
looked round, and perceived that the three sides of the court were
composed of rambling wooden tenements; the fourth was a little garden
in which a few flowers were cultivated.

The elders sat, the youngers stood at a distance;--so respectful is
youth to age in all this eastern world. The first figure in the former
group was the father of our host; the acrid humours of extreme age had
crimsoned his eye-lids, and his head shook from side to side, as he
attempted to rise to salute me, but I held him to his seat. The wife
of our host was a model of fragile delicate beauty. Her nose, mouth,
and chin, were exquisitely chiselled, and her skin was smooth and
white as alabaster; but the eye-lid drooped; the eye hung fire, and
under each orb the skin was slightly blue, but so blending with the
paleness of the rest of the face, as rather to give distinctness to
the character of beauty, than to detract from the general effect. Her
second child hung on her left arm, and a certain graceful negligence
in the plaits of her hair and the arrangement of her bosom, showed
that the cares of the young mother had superseded the nicety of the
coquette.

The only other person in the company worthy of remark, was a Frank.
His surtout was of cloth of second or third quality, but profusely