dly, the neatest in all Great Coram-street. The
area and the area-steps, and the street-door and the street-door steps,
and the brass handle, and the door-plate, and the knocker, and the
fan-light, were all as clean and bright, as indefatigable white-washing,
and hearth-stoning, and scrubbing and rubbing, could make them. The
wonder was, that the brass door-plate, with the interesting inscription
'MRS. TIBBS,' had never caught fire from constant friction, so
perseveringly was it polished. There were meat-safe-looking blinds in
the parlour-windows, blue and gold curtains in the drawing-room, and
spring-roller blinds, as Mrs. Tibbs was wont in the pride of her heart to
boast, 'all the way up.' The bell-lamp in the passage looked as clear as
a soap-bubble; you could see yourself in all the tables, and
French-polish yourself on any one of the chairs. The banisters were
bees-waxed; and the very stair-wires made your eyes wink, they were so
glittering.

Mrs. Tibbs was somewhat short of stature, and Mr. Tibbs was by no means a
large man. He had, moreover, very short legs, but, by way of
indemnification, his face was peculiarly long. He was to his wife what
the 0 is in 90--he was of some importance _with_ her--he was nothing
without her. Mrs. Tibbs was always talking. Mr. Tibbs rarely spoke;
but, if it were at any time possible to put in a word, when he should
have said nothing at all, he had that talent. Mrs. Tibbs detested long
stories, and Mr. Tibbs had one, the conclusion of which had never been
heard by his most intimate friends. It always began, 'I recollect when I
was in the volunteer corps, in eighteen hundred and six,'--but, as he
spoke very slowly and softly, and his better half very quickly and
loudly, he rarely got beyond the introductory sentence. He was a
melancholy specimen of the story-teller. He was the wandering Jew of
Joe Millerism.

Mr. Tibbs enjoyed a small independence from the pension-list--about
43_l._ 15_s._ 10_d._ a year. His father, mother, and five interesting
scions from the same stock, drew a like sum from the revenue of a
grateful country, though for what particular service was never known.
But, as this said independence was not quite sufficient to furnish two
people with _all_ the luxuries of this life, it had occurred to the busy
little spouse of Tibbs, that the best thing she could do with a legacy of
700_l._, would be to take and furnish a tolerable house--somewhere in
that par