clerk in Somerset House when he died at
the age of sixty. Of him no more shall be said than that his wife had
died before him, and that he, at dying, left behind him two sons and
a daughter.

Thomas Mackenzie, the eldest of those two sons, had engaged himself
in commercial pursuits--as his wife was accustomed to say when she
spoke of her husband's labours; or went into trade, and kept a shop,
as was more generally asserted by those of the Mackenzie circle who
were wont to speak their minds freely. The actual and unvarnished
truth in the matter shall now be made known. He, with his partner,
made and sold oilcloth, and was possessed of premises in the New
Road, over which the names of "Rubb and Mackenzie" were posted in
large letters. As you, my reader, might enter therein, and purchase
a yard and a half of oilcloth, if you were so minded, I think that
the free-spoken friends of the family were not far wrong. Mrs Thomas
Mackenzie, however, declared that she was calumniated, and her
husband cruelly injured; and she based her assertions on the fact
that "Rubb and Mackenzie" had wholesale dealings, and that they sold
their article to the trade, who re-sold it. Whether or no she was
ill-treated in the matter, I will leave my readers to decide, having
told them all that it is necessary for them to know, in order that a
judgement may be formed.

Walter Mackenzie, the second son, had been placed in his father's
office, and he also had died before the time at which our story is
supposed to commence. He had been a poor sickly creature, always
ailing, gifted with an affectionate nature, and a great respect for
the blood of the Mackenzies, but not gifted with much else that was
intrinsically his own. The blood of the Mackenzies was, according to
his way of thinking, very pure blood indeed; and he had felt strongly
that his brother had disgraced the family by connecting himself with
that man Rubb, in the New Road. He had felt this the more strongly,
seeing that "Rubb and Mackenzie" had not done great things in their
trade. They had kept their joint commercial head above water, but
had sometimes barely succeeded in doing that. They had never been
bankrupt, and that, perhaps, for some years was all that could be
said. If a Mackenzie did go into trade, he should, at any rate, have
done better than this. He certainly should have done better than
this, seeing that he started in life with a considerable sum of
money.

Old Mackenzie,--