vals, to empty
the entire contents of his counting-house into his little dining parlor;
and you consequently sit down to dinner with six white-waistcoated
clerks, let loose upon a turkey. The second was that I am not
sufficiently well read in cotton and sugar, to enter with any spirit
into the subject of conversation. And the third was, and is, that I
never drink Cape wine. But by far the most prevailing reason remains to
be told. I had been anticipating for some days, and was hourly in the
hope of receiving, an invitation to spend my Christmas Day in a most
irresistible quarter. I was expecting, indeed, the felicity of eating
plum-pudding with an angel; and, on the strength of my imaginary
engagement, I returned a polite note to Mr. P., reducing him to the
necessity of advertising for another candidate for Cape and turkey.

The twenty-first came. Another invitation--to dine with a regiment of
roast-beef eaters, at Clapham. I declined this also, for the above
reason, and for one other, _viz._, that, on dining there ten Christmas
Days ago, it was discovered, on sitting down, that one little
accompaniment of the roast beef had been entirely overlooked. Would it
be believed!--but I will not stay to mystify--I merely mention the fact.
They had forgotten the horseradish.

The next day arrived, and with it a neat epistle, sealed with
violet-colored wax, from Upper Brook street. "Dine with the ladies--at
home on Christmas Day." Very tempting, it is true; but not exactly the
letter I was longing for. I began, however, to debate within myself upon
the policy of securing this bird in hand, instead of waiting for the two
that were still hopping about the bush, when the consultation was
suddenly brought to a close, by a prophetic view of the portfolio of
drawings fresh from boarding-school--moths and roses on embossed
paper;--to say nothing of the album, in which I stood engaged to write
an elegy on a Java sparrow, that had been the favorite in the family for
three days. I rung for gilt-edged, pleaded a world of polite regret, and
again declined.

The twenty-third dawned; time was getting on rather rapidly; but no card
came. I began to despair of any more invitations, and to repent of my
refusals. Breakfast was hardly over, however, when the servant brought
up--not a letter--but an aunt and a brace of cousins from Bayswater.
They would listen to no excuse; consanguinity required me, and Christmas
was not my own. Now my cousins k