ze of the bracelets which encircled
her wrists, that he labored for a short time under the impression that
he and she were literally handcuffed together; an impression, he added,
from which he was soon relieved by the consoling reflection that it was
the sheriff himself whom the clergyman had sentenced to stand in that
pleasant predicament. Of Mrs. Brown and Mrs. Hastings we have only to
say that they were modest, sensible, unassuming women, without either
parade or pretence, such, in fact, as you will generally meet among
our well-bred and educated countrywomen. Lord Deilmacare was a widower,
without family, and not a marrying man. Indeed, when pressed upon this
subject, he was never known to deviate from the one reply.

"Why don't you marry again, my lord?--will you ever marry?"

"No, madam, I got enough of it," a reply which, somehow, generally
checked any further inquiry on the subject. Between Lady Joram and Mrs.
Smellpriest there subsisted a singular analogy with respect to their
conjugal attachments. It was hinted that her ladyship, in those
secret but delicious moments of matrimonial felicity which make up the
sugar-candy morsels of domestic life, used to sit with Sir Jenkins for
the purpose, by judicious exercise, of easing, by convivial exercise, a
rheumatic affection which she complained of in her right arm. There is
nothing, however, so delightful as a general and loving sympathy between
husband and wife; and here it was said to exist in perfection. Mrs.
Smellpriest, on the other hand, was said to have been equally attached
to the political principles of the noble captain, and to wonder why any
clergyman should be suffered to live in the country but those of her
own Church; such delightful men, for instance, as their curate, the Rev.
Samson Strong, who was nothing more nor less than a divine bonfire in
the eyes of the Christian! world. Such was his zeal against Papists, she
said, as well as against Popery at large, that she never looked on him
without thinking that there was a priest to be burned. Indeed Captain
Smellpriest, she added, was under great obligations to him, for
no sooner had his reverence heard of a priest taking earth in the
neighborhood, than he lost no time in communicating the fact to her
husband; after which he would kindly sit with and comfort her whilst
fretting lest any mischief might befall her dear captain.

The dinner passed as all dinners usually do. They hobnobbed, of course,
and