my daughter and her husband one hundred and fifty
pounds a-year, and never see their faces again: and, damme! ma'am, I'll
bring in a bill for the abolition of finishing-schools.'

Some time has elapsed since this passionate declaration. Mr. and Mrs.
Butler are at present rusticating in a small cottage at Ball's-pond,
pleasantly situated in the immediate vicinity of a brick-field. They
have no family. Mr. Theodosius looks very important, and writes
incessantly; but, in consequence of a gross combination on the part of
publishers, none of his productions appear in print. His young wife
begins to think that ideal misery is preferable to real unhappiness; and
that a marriage, contracted in haste, and repented at leisure, is the
cause of more substantial wretchedness than she ever anticipated.

On cool reflection, Cornelius Brook Dingwall, Esq., M.P., was reluctantly
compelled to admit that the untoward result of his admirable arrangements
was attributable, not to the Miss Crumptons, but his own diplomacy. He,
however, consoles himself, like some other small diplomatists, by
satisfactorily proving that if his plans did not succeed, they ought to
have done so. Minerva House is _in status quo_, and 'The Misses
Crumpton' remain in the peaceable and undisturbed enjoyment of all the
advantages resulting from their Finishing-School.

CHAPTER IV--THE TUGGSES AT RAMSGATE

Once upon a time there dwelt, in a narrow street on the Surrey side of
the water, within three minutes' walk of old London Bridge, Mr. Joseph
Tuggs--a little dark-faced man, with shiny hair, twinkling eyes, short
legs, and a body of very considerable thickness, measuring from the
centre button of his waistcoat in front, to the ornamental buttons of his
coat behind. The figure of the amiable Mrs. Tuggs, if not perfectly
symmetrical, was decidedly comfortable; and the form of her only
daughter, the accomplished Miss Charlotte Tuggs, was fast ripening into
that state of luxuriant plumpness which had enchanted the eyes, and
captivated the heart, of Mr. Joseph Tuggs in his earlier days. Mr. Simon
Tuggs, his only son, and Miss Charlotte Tuggs's only brother, was as
differently formed in body, as he was differently constituted in mind,
from the remainder of his family. There was that elongation in his
thoughtful face, and that tendency to weakness in his interesting legs,
which tell so forcibly of a great mind and romantic disposition. The
slightest tra