and complains that his father has always been so busy with the sun
round which the earth revolves, that he has never taken any notice
of the son that revolves round him; and that he hasn't had a new
suit of clothes since he was fourteen; and that he wasn't even
taken out of nankeen frocks and trousers till he was quite
unpleasant in 'em; and touches on a good many more family matters
to the same purpose. To make short of a long story, gentlemen,
they all talk together, and cry together, and remind the old
gentleman that as to the noble family, his own grandfather would
have been lord mayor if he hadn't died at a dinner the year before;
and they show him by all kinds of arguments that if the cousins are
married, the prediction comes true every way. At last, the old
gentleman being quite convinced, gives in; and joins their hands;
and leaves his daughter to marry anybody she likes; and they are
all well pleased; and the Gifted as well as any of them.

'In the middle of this little family party, gentlemen, sits Tom all
the while, as miserable as you like. But, when everything else is
arranged, the old gentleman's daughter says, that their strange
conduct was a little device of the waiting-maid's to disgust the
lovers he had chosen for 'em, and will he forgive her? and if he
will, perhaps he might even find her a husband - and when she says
that, she looks uncommon hard at Tom. Then the waiting-maid says
that, oh dear! she couldn't abear Mr. Grig should think she wanted
him to marry her; and that she had even gone so far as to refuse
the last lamplighter, who was now a literary character (having set
up as a bill-sticker); and that she hoped Mr. Grig would not
suppose she was on her last legs by any means, for the baker was
very strong in his attentions at that moment, and as to the
butcher, he was frantic. And I don't know how much more she might