pportunity of judging for yourself, and all I have to say is, that I
trust you will never go to a funeral _there_ again.' 'My dear,' replies
the formal gentleman, 'I never will.' So the informal deceased is cut in
his grave; and the formal couple, when they tell the story of the
funeral, shake their heads, and wonder what some people's feelings _are_
made of, and what their notions of propriety _can_ be!

If the formal couple have a family (which they sometimes have), they are
not children, but little, pale, sour, sharp-nosed men and women; and so
exquisitely brought up, that they might be very old dwarfs for anything
that appeareth to the contrary. Indeed, they are so acquainted with
forms and conventionalities, and conduct themselves with such strict
decorum, that to see the little girl break a looking-glass in some wild
outbreak, or the little boy kick his parents, would be to any visitor an
unspeakable relief and consolation.

The formal couple are always sticklers for what is rigidly proper, and
have a great readiness in detecting hidden impropriety of speech or
thought, which by less scrupulous people would be wholly unsuspected.
Thus, if they pay a visit to the theatre, they sit all night in a perfect
agony lest anything improper or immoral should proceed from the stage;
and if anything should happen to be said which admits of a double
construction, they never fail to take it up directly, and to express by
their looks the great outrage which their feelings have sustained.
Perhaps this is their chief reason for absenting themselves almost
entirely from places of public amusement. They go sometimes to the
Exhibition of the Royal Academy;--but that is often more shocking than
the stage itself, and the formal lady thinks that it really is high time
Mr. Etty was prosecuted and made a public example of.

We made one at a christening party not long since, where there were
amongst the guests a formal couple, who suffered the acutest torture from
certain jokes, incidental to such an occasion, cut--and very likely dried
also--by one of the godfathers; a red-faced elderly gentleman, who, being
highly popular with the rest of the company, had it all his own way, and
was in great spirits. It was at supper-time that this gentleman came out
in full force. We--being of a grave and quiet demeanour--had been chosen
to escort the formal lady down-stairs, and, sitting beside her, had a
favourable opportunity of observing her