'What Matilda?' inquired Hicks, starting up.

'Matilda Maplesone,' responded the other, doing the same.

'I marry her to-morrow morning,' said Hicks.

'It's false,' rejoined his companion: 'I marry her!'

'You marry her?'

'I marry her!'

'You marry Matilda Maplesone?'

'Matilda Maplesone.'

'_Miss_ Maplesone marry _you_?'

'Miss Maplesone! No; Mrs. Maplesone.'

'Good Heaven!' said Hicks, falling into his chair: 'You marry the mother,
and I the daughter!'

'Most extraordinary circumstance!' replied Mr. Calton, 'and rather
inconvenient too; for the fact is, that owing to Matilda's wishing to
keep her intention secret from her daughters until the ceremony had taken
place, she doesn't like applying to any of her friends to give her away.
I entertain an objection to making the affair known to my acquaintance
just now; and the consequence is, that I sent to you to know whether
you'd oblige me by acting as father.'

'I should have been most happy, I assure you,' said Hicks, in a tone of
condolence; 'but, you see, I shall be acting as bridegroom. One
character is frequently a consequence of the other; but it is not usual
to act in both at the same time. There's Simpson--I have no doubt he'll
do it for you.'

'I don't like to ask him,' replied Calton, 'he's such a donkey.'

Mr. Septimus Hicks looked up at the ceiling, and down at the floor; at
last an idea struck him. 'Let the man of the house, Tibbs, be the
father,' he suggested; and then he quoted, as peculiarly applicable to
Tibbs and the pair--

'Oh Powers of Heaven! what dark eyes meets she there?
'Tis--'tis her father's--fixed upon the pair.'

'The idea has struck me already,' said Mr. Calton: 'but, you see,
Matilda, for what reason I know not, is very anxious that Mrs. Tibbs
should know nothing about it, till it's all over. It's a natural
delicacy, after all, you know.'

'He's the best-natured little man in existence, if you manage him
properly,' said Mr. Septimus Hicks. 'Tell him not to mention it to his
wife, and assure him she won't mind it, and he'll do it directly. My
marriage is to be a secret one, on account of the mother and _my_ father;
therefore he must be enjoined to secrecy.'

A small double knock, like a presumptuous single one, was that instant
heard at the street-door. It was Tibbs; it could be no one else; for no
one else occupied five minutes in rubbing his shoes. He had been out to
pay the baker's bill.

'Mr.