ts.

'My dear Edward,' said Mr Chester at length, with a most engaging laugh,
'do not extend your drowsy influence to the decanter. Suffer THAT to
circulate, let your spirits be never so stagnant.'

Edward begged his pardon, passed it, and relapsed into his former state.

'You do wrong not to fill your glass,' said Mr Chester, holding up his
own before the light. 'Wine in moderation--not in excess, for that makes
men ugly--has a thousand pleasant influences. It brightens the eye,
improves the voice, imparts a new vivacity to one's thoughts and
conversation: you should try it, Ned.'

'Ah father!' cried his son, 'if--'

'My good fellow,' interposed the parent hastily, as he set down his
glass, and raised his eyebrows with a startled and horrified expression,
'for Heaven's sake don't call me by that obsolete and ancient name. Have
some regard for delicacy. Am I grey, or wrinkled, do I go on crutches,
have I lost my teeth, that you adopt such a mode of address? Good God,
how very coarse!'

'I was about to speak to you from my heart, sir,' returned Edward, 'in
the confidence which should subsist between us; and you check me in the
outset.'

'Now DO, Ned, DO not,' said Mr Chester, raising his delicate hand
imploringly, 'talk in that monstrous manner. About to speak from
your heart. Don't you know that the heart is an ingenious part of
our formation--the centre of the blood-vessels and all that sort of
thing--which has no more to do with what you say or think, than your
knees have? How can you be so very vulgar and absurd? These anatomical
allusions should be left to gentlemen of the medical profession. They
are really not agreeable in society. You quite surprise me, Ned.'

'Well! there are no such things to wound, or heal, or have regard for. I
know your creed, sir, and will say no more,' returned his son.

'There again,' said Mr Chester, sipping his wine, 'you are wrong. I
distinctly say there are such things. We know there are. The hearts of
animals--of bullocks, sheep, and so forth--are cooked and devoured, as
I am told, by the lower classes, with a vast deal of relish. Men are
sometimes stabbed to the heart, shot to the heart; but as to speaking
from the heart, or to the heart, or being warm-hearted, or cold-hearted,
or broken-hearted, or being all heart, or having no heart--pah! these
things are nonsense, Ned.'

'No doubt, sir,' returned his son, seeing that he paused for him to
speak. 'No doubt.'

'There's