No. XI

Cumberland Oysters Produce Melancholy Forebodings.

The 'soft sawder' of the Clockmaker had operated effectually
on the beauty of Amherst, our lovely hostess of Pugwash's
Inn: indeed, I am inclined to think, with Mr. Slick, that
'the road to a woman's heart lies through her child,'
from the effect produced upon her by the praises bestowed
on her infant boy. I was musing on this feminine
susceptibility to flattery, when the door opened, and
Mrs. Pugwash entered, dressed in her sweetest smiles and
her best cap, an auxiliary by no means required by her
charms, which, like an Italian sky, when unclouded, are
unrivalled in splendor. Approaching me, she said, with
an irresistible smile, would you like Mr. ---, (here
there was a pause, a hiatus, evidently intended for me
to fill up with my name; but that no person knows, nor
do I intend they shall; at Medley's Hotel, in Halifax,
I was known as the stranger in No. 1. The attention that
incognito procured for me, the importance it gave me in
the eyes of the master of the house, its lodgers and
servants, is indescribable. It is only great people who
travel incog. State travelling is inconvenient and slow;
the constant weight of form and etiquette oppresses at
once the strength and the spirits. It is pleasant to