had gone on reading one night more-only one night more-he must have
put a blister on each temple, and another between his shoulders;
and who, as it was, sat down upon the instant, and writing a
prescription for a blue pill, said it must be taken immediately, or
he wouldn't answer for the consequences. The recital of these and
many other moving perils of the like nature, constantly harrows up
the feelings of Mr. Nixon's friends.

Mrs. Nixon has a tolerably extensive circle of female acquaintance,
being a good-humoured, talkative, bustling little body, and to the
unmarried girls among them she is constantly vaunting the virtues
of her son, hinting that she will be a very happy person who wins
him, but that they must mind their P's and Q's, for he is very
particular, and terribly severe upon young ladies. At this last
caution the young ladies resident in the same row, who happen to be
spending the evening there, put their pocket-handkerchiefs before
their mouths, and are troubled with a short cough; just then Felix
knocks at the door, and his mother drawing the tea-table nearer the
fire, calls out to him as he takes off his boots in the back
parlour that he needn't mind coming in in his slippers, for there
are only the two Miss Greys and Miss Thompson, and she is quite
sure they will excuse HIM, and nodding to the two Miss Greys, she
adds, in a whisper, that Julia Thompson is a great favourite with
Felix, at which intelligence the short cough comes again, and Miss
Thompson in particular is greatly troubled with it, till Felix
coming in, very faint for want of his tea, changes the subject of
discourse, and enables her to laugh out boldly and tell Amelia Grey
not to be so foolish. Here they all three laugh, and Mrs. Nixon
says they are giddy girls; in which stage of the proceedings,
Felix, who has by this time refreshened himself with the grateful