his spouse from above. Mr. Freeman, be so good as to bring him up-stairs.' 'I come,' said Myte, rising with some difficulty. 'Savage is your name, not Freeman,' turning to me. That name, though, is a good one to anybody who wants a good name-and who does not? I'll have it, and marry again; and leave Flusterina to the willow-trees. We have been talking of you, Ricardo, and to good purpose. Semiramis must succumb.' 'Permit me, dear sir, to help you up-stairs,' said I, for I heard Mrs. Myte fidgeting and fuming on the landing. 'Vandal will go soon,' said he, with a wise look in my face. 'The pretty fellows sharpened their eyes upon her, as Job says. Poor Job! He had a wife. Vandal will be taken from me, and then, desolation to this household.' Here he affected to whimper. 'Never mind,' he added, 'perhaps, in a few years, we shall see little toddles waddling about this room, as grave as though they knew they were one day to be drawn out into men and women.' This contemplation was so pleasing that he remained in it for a considerable length of time, heedless of Mrs. Myte's importunities, and of my endeavours to second them. 'Blessed bawlers!' he exclaimed at length, with a farewell wave of the hand, as though the creatures of his imagination had just waddled, or were then waddling, through the opposite wall,-and he turned out of the room. He favoured me with a frisk as I left him at his own door. CHAPTER IX. An apostrophe which seems to indicate the author's parentage. He waits upon a certain Colonel. His reception, and in whose presence. Он, my mother! Should these pages ever meet thine eyesand it shall not be my fault if they do not,-will it not be a dear and self-hugging delight to thee to perceive what trouble I have been at to portray thee and thy doings? It would be so, but that I prevent thy transports, thus:-Let me whisper it in thine ear-an ear never deaf to an unworthy confession. It is a labour of love to me. Mine are the self-huggings-the triumphant snappings of the thumb and finger-the ecstatic rubbing of the palms. As Falstaff was not only witty himself, but the cause of wit in others; so art thou, not only wicked, but an instigation to wickedness in me. Else, why the abomi nable exultation I confess I feel-and cannot choose but feel-in de |