d to hint to the ladies, that all the gentlemen were 'eligible.' A
little flirtation, she thought, might keep her house full, without
leading to any other result.

Mrs. Maplesone was an enterprising widow of about fifty: shrewd,
scheming, and good-looking. She was amiably anxious on behalf of her
daughters; in proof whereof she used to remark, that she would have no
objection to marry again, if it would benefit her dear girls--she could
have no other motive. The 'dear girls' themselves were not at all
insensible to the merits of 'a good establishment.' One of them was
twenty-five; the other, three years younger. They had been at different
watering-places, for four seasons; they had gambled at libraries, read
books in balconies, sold at fancy fairs, danced at assemblies, talked
sentiment--in short, they had done all that industrious girls could
do--but, as yet, to no purpose.

'What a magnificent dresser Mr. Simpson is!' whispered Matilda Maplesone
to her sister Julia.

'Splendid!' returned the youngest. The magnificent individual alluded to
wore a maroon-coloured dress-coat, with a velvet collar and cuffs of the
same tint--very like that which usually invests the form of the
distinguished unknown who condescends to play the 'swell' in the
pantomime at 'Richardson's Show.'

'What whiskers!' said Miss Julia.

'Charming!' responded her sister; 'and what hair!' His hair was like a
wig, and distinguished by that insinuating wave which graces the shining
locks of those _chef-d'oeuvres_ of art surmounting the waxen images in
Bartellot's window in Regent-street; his whiskers meeting beneath his
chin, seemed strings wherewith to tie it on, ere science had rendered
them unnecessary by her patent invisible springs.

'Dinner's on the table, ma'am, if you please,' said the boy, who now
appeared for the first time, in a revived black coat of his master's.

'Oh! Mr. Calton, will you lead Mrs. Maplesone?--Thank you.' Mr. Simpson
offered his arm to Miss Julia; Mr. Septimus Hicks escorted the lovely
Matilda; and the procession proceeded to the dining-room. Mr. Tibbs was
introduced, and Mr. Tibbs bobbed up and down to the three ladies like a
figure in a Dutch clock, with a powerful spring in the middle of his
body, and then dived rapidly into his seat at the bottom of the table,
delighted to screen himself behind a soup-tureen, which he could just see
over, and that was all. The boarders were seated, a lady and gentleman