hing that I never shone in, possibly because
my early studies were framed in a different direction; but as I really
was unwilling to offend the respectable coffin-maker, and as I found
that the Captain of M'Alcohol--a decided trump in his way--had also
received a summons, I notified my acceptance.

M'Alcohol and I went together. The captain, an enormous brawny Celt,
with superhuman whiskers and a shock of the fieriest hair, had figged
himself out, _more majorum_, in the full Highland costume. I never saw
Rob Roy on the stage look half so dignified or ferocious. He glittered
from head to foot with dirk, pistol, and skean-dhu; and at least a
hundredweight of cairngorms cast a prismatic glory around his person. I
felt quite abashed beside him.

We were ushered into Mr. Sawley's drawing-room. Round the walls, and
at considerable distances from each other, were seated about a dozen
characters, male and female, all of them dressed in sable, and wearing
countenances of woe. Sawley advanced, and wrung me by the hand with
so piteous an expression of visage that I could not help thinking some
awful catastrophe had just befallen his family.

"You are welcome, Mr. Dunshunner--welcome to my humble tabernacle. Let
me present you to Mrs. Sawley"--and a lady, who seemed to have bathed
in the Yellow Sea, rose from her seat, and favoured me with a profound
curtsey.

"My daughter--Miss Selina Sawley."

I felt in my brain the scorching glance of the two darkest eyes it ever
was my fortune to behold, as the beauteous Selina looked up from the
perusal of her handkerchief hem. It was a pity that the other features
were not corresponding; for the nose was flat, and the mouth of such
dimensions that a harlequin might have jumped down it with impunity; but
the eyes _were_ splendid.

In obedience to a sign from the hostess, I sank into a chair beside
Selina; and, not knowing exactly what to say, hazarded some observation
about the weather.

"Yes, it is indeed a suggestive season. How deeply, Mr. Dunshunner, we
ought to feel the pensive progress of autumn toward a soft and premature
decay! I always think, about this time of the year, that nature is
falling into a consumption!"

"To be sure, ma'am," said I, rather taken aback by this style of
colloquy, "the trees are looking devilishly hectic."

"Ah, you have remarked that too! Strange! It was but yesterday that I
was wandering through Kelvin Grove, and as the phantom breeze brought
dow