it was found that Lord Mauleverer--the good-natured Lord Mauleverer, the
obliging Lord Mauleverer--was really going to be exclusive, and out of a
thousand acquaintances to select only eight hundred, it is amazing how
his popularity deepened into respect. Now, then, came anxiety and
triumph; she who was asked turned her back upon her who was not,--old
friendships dissolved,--Independence wrote letters for a ticket,--and, as
England is the freest country in the world, all the Mistresses Hodges and
Snodges begged to take the liberty of bringing their youngest daughters.

Leaving the enviable Mauleverer,--the god-like occasion of so much
happiness and woe, triumph and dejection,--ascend with us, O reader, into
those elegant apartments over the hairdresser's shop, tenanted by Mr.
Edward Pepper and Mr. Augustus Tomlinson. The time was that of evening;
Captain Clifford had been dining with his two friends; the cloth was
removed, and conversation was flowing over a table graced by two bottles
of port, a bowl of punch for Mr. Pepper's especial discussion, two dishes
of filberts, another of devilled biscuits, and a fourth of three Pomarian
crudities, which nobody touched.

The hearth was swept clean, the fire burned high and clear, the curtains
were let down, and the light excluded. Our three adventurers and their
rooms seemed the picture of comfort. So thought Mr. Pepper; for,
glancing round the chamber and putting his feet upon the fender, he
said,--

"Were my portrait to be taken, gentlemen, it is just as I am now that I
would be drawn!"

"And," said Tomlinson, cracking his filberts,--Tomlinson was fond of
filberts,--"were I to choose a home, it is in such a home as this that I