rich, vulgar, kind, good-humored Mrs. COLONEL Grogwater, as she would be
called, with a yellow little husband from Madras, who first taught me
to drink sangaree. He was a new arrival in our county, but paid nobly to
the hounds, and occupied hospitably a house which was always famous
for its hospitality--Sievely Hall (poor Bob Cullender ran through seven
thousand a year before he was thirty years old). Once when I was a
lad, Colonel Grogwater gave me two gold mohurs out of his desk for
whist-markers, and I'm sorry to say I ran up from Eton and sold them
both for seventy-three shillings at a shop in Cornhill. But to return
to the ladies, who are all this while kept waiting in the hall, and to
their usual conversation after dinner.

Can any man forget how miserably flat it was? Five matrons sit on sofas,
and talk in a subdued voice:--First Lady (mysteriously).--"My dear Lady
Dawdley, do tell me about poor Susan Tuckett."

Second Lady.--"All three children are perfectly well, and I assure you
as fine babies as I ever saw in my life. I made her give them Daffy's
Elixir the first day; and it was the greatest mercy that I had some of
Frederick's baby-clothes by me; for you know I had provided Susan with
sets for one only, and really--"

Third Lady.--"Of course one couldn't; and for my part I think your
ladyship is a great deal too kind to these people. A little gardener's
boy dressed in Lord Dawdley's frocks indeed! I recollect that one at his
christening had the sweetest lace in the world!"

Fourth Lady.--"What do you think of this, ma'am--Lady Emily, I mean? I
have just had it from Howell and James:--guipure, they call it. Isn't
it an odd name for lace! And they charge me, upon my conscience, four