communications, I--I thought it might have miscarried--that's all."

My friend laughed heartily, as if he saw into and enjoyed my motives and
my confusion. "Safe?--it came safe enough," he said. "The wind of the
world always blows its vanities into haven. But this is the end of the
session, when I have little time to read any thing printed except
Inner-House papers; yet if you will take your kail with us next
Saturday, I will glance over your work, though I am sure I am no
competent judge of such matters."

With this promise I was fain to take my leave, not without half
persuading myself that if once the phlegmatic lawyer began my
lucubrations, he would not be able to rise from them till he had
finished the perusal, nor to endure an interval betwixt his reading the
last page, and requesting an interview with the author.

No such marks of impatience displayed themselves. Time, blunt or keen,
as my friend Joanna says, swift or leisurely, held his course; and on
the appointed Saturday, I was at the door precisely as it struck four.
The dinner hour, indeed, was five punctually; but what did I know but my
friend might want half an hour's conversation with me before that time?
I was ushered into an empty drawing-room, and, from a needle-book and
work-basket hastily abandoned, I had some reason to think I interrupted
my little friend, Miss Katie, in some domestic labour more praiseworthy
than elegant. In this critical age, filial piety must hide herself in a
closet, if she has a mind to darn her father's linen.

Shortly after, I was the more fully convinced that I had been too early
an intruder when a wench came to fetch away the basket, and recommend to
my courtesies a red and green gentleman in a cage, who answered all my