e morning, after promising to take us out, and when you
do come home, you stand whispering together and take no notice of us.'

'We were talking of the _business_, my dear, which detained us this
morning,' replied Parsons, looking significantly at Tottle.

'Dear me! how very quickly the morning has gone,' said Miss Lillerton,
referring to the gold watch, which was wound up on state occasions,
whether it required it or not.

'I think it has passed very slowly,' mildly suggested Tottle.

('That's right--bravo!') whispered Parsons.

'Indeed!' said Miss Lillerton, with an air of majestic surprise.

'I can only impute it to my unavoidable absence from your society,
madam,' said Watkins, 'and that of Mrs. Parsons.'

During this short dialogue, the ladies had been leading the way to the
house.

'What the deuce did you stick Fanny into that last compliment for?'
inquired Parsons, as they followed together; 'it quite spoilt the
effect.'

'Oh! it really would have been too broad without,' replied Watkins
Tottle, 'much too broad!'

'He's mad!' Parsons whispered his wife, as they entered the drawing-room,
'mad from modesty.'

'Dear me!' ejaculated the lady, 'I never heard of such a thing.'

'You'll find we have quite a family dinner, Mr. Tottle,' said Mrs.
Parsons, when they sat down to table: 'Miss Lillerton is one of us, and,
of course, we make no stranger of you.'

Mr. Watkins Tottle expressed a hope that the Parsons family never would
make a stranger of him; and wished internally that his bashfulness would
allow him to feel a little less like a stranger himself.

'Take off the covers, Martha,' said Mrs. Parsons, directing the shifting
of the scenery with great anxiety. The order was obeyed, and a pair of
boiled fowls, with tongue and et ceteras, were displayed at the top, and
a fillet of veal at the bottom. On one side of the table two green
sauce-tureens, with ladles of the same, were setting to each other in a
green dish; and on the other was a curried rabbit, in a brown suit,
turned up with lemon.

'Miss Lillerton, my dear,' said Mrs. Parsons, 'shall I assist you?'

'Thank you, no; I think I'll trouble Mr. Tottle.'

Watkins started--trembled--helped the rabbit--and broke a tumbler. The
countenance of the lady of the house, which had been all smiles
previously, underwent an awful change.

'Extremely sorry,' stammered Watkins, assisting himself to currie and
parsley and butter, in the extremity of his