still keeping a most respectful
distance from the lady; 'when shall we meet again?'

'Oh! Mr. Tottle,' replied Miss Lillerton, coquettishly, 'when we are
married, I can never see you too often, nor thank you too much;' and she
left the room.

Mr. Watkins Tottle flung himself into an arm-chair, and indulged in the
most delicious reveries of future bliss, in which the idea of 'Five
hundred pounds per annum, with an uncontrolled power of disposing of it
by her last will and testament,' was somehow or other the foremost. He
had gone through the interview so well, and it had terminated so
admirably, that he almost began to wish he had expressly stipulated for
the settlement of the annual five hundred on himself.

'May I come in?' said Mr. Gabriel Parsons, peeping in at the door.

'You may,' replied Watkins.

'Well, have you done it?' anxiously inquired Gabriel.

'Have I done it!' said Watkins Tottle. 'Hush--I'm going to the
clergyman.'

'No!' said Parsons. 'How well you have managed it!'

'Where does Timson live?' inquired Watkins.

'At his uncle's,' replied Gabriel, 'just round the lane. He's waiting
for a living, and has been assisting his uncle here for the last two or
three months. But how well you have done it--I didn't think you could
have carried it off so!'

Mr. Watkins Tottle was proceeding to demonstrate that the Richardsonian
principle was the best on which love could possibly be made, when he was
interrupted by the entrance of Martha, with a little pink note folded
like a fancy cocked-hat.

'Miss Lillerton's compliments,' said Martha, as she delivered it into
Tottle's hands, and vanished.

'Do you observe the delicacy?' said Tottle, appealing to Mr. Gabriel
Parsons. '_Compliments_, not _love_, by the servant, eh?'

Mr. Gabriel Parsons didn't exactly know what reply to make, so he poked
the forefinger of his right hand between the third and fourth ribs of Mr.
Watkins Tottle.

'Come,' said Watkins, when the explosion of mirth, consequent on this
practical jest, had subsided, 'we'll be off at once--let's lose no time.'

'Capital!' echoed Gabriel Parsons; and in five minutes they were at the
garden-gate of the villa tenanted by the uncle of Mr. Timson.

'Is Mr. Charles Timson at home?' inquired Mr. Watkins Tottle of Mr.
Charles Timson's uncle's man.

'Mr. Charles _is_ at home,' replied the man, stammering; 'but he desired
me to say he couldn't be interrupted, sir, by any of the parishioner