transition, turns upon the spirit which glows within the bosom of
Felix, upon which point Felix himself becomes eloquent, and relates a
thrilling anecdote of the time when he used to sit up till two o'clock in
the morning reading French, and how his mother used to say, 'Felix, you
will make yourself ill, I know you will;' and how _he_ used to say,
'Mother, I don't care--I will do it;' and how at last his mother
privately procured a doctor to come and see him, who declared, the moment
he felt his pulse, that if he had gone on reading one night more--only
one night more--he must have put a blister on each temple, and another
between his shoulders; and who, as it was, sat down upon the instant, and
writing a prescription for a blue pill, said it must be taken
immediately, or he wouldn't answer for the consequences. The recital of
these and many other moving perils of the like nature, constantly harrows
up the feelings of Mr. Nixon's friends.

Mrs. Nixon has a tolerably extensive circle of female acquaintance, being
a good-humoured, talkative, bustling little body, and to the unmarried
girls among them she is constantly vaunting the virtues of her son,
hinting that she will be a very happy person who wins him, but that they
must mind their P's and Q's, for he is very particular, and terribly
severe upon young ladies. At this last caution the young ladies resident
in the same row, who happen to be spending the evening there, put their
pocket-handkerchiefs before their mouths, and are troubled with a short
cough; just then Felix knocks at the door, and his mother drawing the
tea-table nearer the fire, calls out to him as he takes off his boots in
the back parlour that he needn't mind coming in in his slippers, for
there are only the two Miss Greys and Miss Thompson, and she is quite
sure they will excuse _him_, and nodding to the two Miss Greys, she adds,
in a whisper, that Julia Thompson is a great favourite with Felix, at
which intelligence the short cough comes again, and Miss Thompson in
particular is greatly troubled with it, till Felix coming in, very faint
for want of his tea, changes the subject of discourse, and enables her to
laugh out boldly and tell Amelia Grey not to be so foolish. Here they
all three laugh, and Mrs. Nixon says they are giddy girls; in which stage
of the proceedings, Felix, who has by this time refreshened himself with
the grateful herb that 'cheers but not inebriates,' removes his cup from
hi