circumstances,
that worked upon the mind of Mr Sawley. Possibly it was a combination
of the three; but sure enough few days had elapsed before I received a
formal card of invitation to a tea and serious conversation. Now
serious conversation is a sort of thing that I never shone in,
possibly because my early studies were framed in a different
direction; but as I really was unwilling to offend the respectable
coffin-maker, and as I found that the Captain of M'Alcohol--a decided
trump in his way--had also received a summons, I notified my
acceptance.

M'Alcohol and I went together. The Captain, an enormous brawny Celt,
with superhuman whiskers, and a shock of the fieriest hair, had figged
himself out, _more majorum_, in the full Highland costume. I never saw
Rob Roy on the stage look half so dignified or ferocious. He glittered
from head to foot, with dirk, pistol, and skean-dhu, and at least a
hundred-weight of cairngorms cast a prismatic glory around his person.
I felt quite abashed beside him.

We were ushered into Mr Sawley's drawing-room. Round the walls, and at
considerable distances from each other, were seated about a dozen
characters, male and female, all of them dressed in sable, and wearing
countenances of woe. Sawley advanced, and wrung me by the hand with so
piteous an expression of visage, that I could not help thinking some
awful catastrophe had just befallen his family.

"You are welcome, Mr Dunshunner--welcome to my humble tabernacle. Let
me present you to Mrs Sawley"--and a lady, who seemed to have bathed
in the Yellow Sea, rose from her seat, and favoured me with a profound
curtsy.

"My daughter--Miss Selina Sawley."

I felt in my brain the scorching glance of the two darkest eyes it
ever was my fortune to behold, as the beauteous Selina looked up from
the perusal of her handkerchief hem. It was a pity that the other
features were not corresponding; for the nose was flat, and the mouth
of such dimensions, that a Harlequin might have jumped down it with
impunity--but the eyes _were_ splendid.

In obedience to a sign from the hostess, I sank into a chair beside
Selina; and not knowing exactly what to say, hazarded some observation
about the weather.

"Yes, it is indeed a suggestive season. How deeply, Mr Dunshunner, we
ought to feel the pensive progress of autumn towards a soft and
premature decay! I always think, about this time of the year, that
nature is falling into a consumption!"

"To be