Earl's daughter would do towards the merchants' wives and daughters who
made up the feminine portion of the party.

I talked with her a little, and found her sensible, vivacious, and
firm-textured, rather than soft and sentimental. She paid me some
compliments; but I do not remember paying her any.

Mr. J-----'s daughters, two pale, handsome girls, were present. One of
them is to be married to a grandson of Mr. ------, who was also at the
dinner. He is a small young man, with a thin and fair mustache, . . . .
and a lady who sat next me whispered that his expectations are 6,000
pounds per annum. It struck me, that, being a country gentleman's son,
he kept himself silent and reserved, as feeling himself too good for this
commercial dinner-party; but perhaps, and I rather think so, he was
really shy and had nothing to say, being only twenty-one, and therefore
quite a boy among Englishmen. The only man of cognizable rank present,
except Mr. ------ and the Mayor of Liverpool, was a Baronet, Sir Thomas
Birch.


January 17th.--S---- and I were invited to be present at the wedding of
Mr. J-------'s daughter this morning, but we were also bidden to the
funeral services of Mrs. G------, a young American lady; and we went to
the "house of mourning," rather than to the "house of feasting." Her
death was very sudden. I crossed to Rock Ferry on Saturday, and met her
husband in the boat. He said his wife was rather unwell, and that he had
just been sent for to see her; but he did not seem at all alarmed. And
yet, on reaching home, he found her dead! The body is to be conveyed to
America, and the funeral service was read over her in her house, only a
few neighbors and friends being present. We were shown into a darkened