nd. For 'spose a case;--'spose it had been
my sister as married Mrs Whalley instead of me--it's probable there
wouldn't have been no great fambly; wich in cooss, if there was no
poppleation"--

But what the fearful result of this supposed case would have been, has
never been discovered; for Miss Hendy, making a signal to the four
representatives of the female sex started out of the room as if she
had heard Mr Whalley had the plague, and left the gentlemen to
themselves.

"De Stael was no match for that wonderful woman," said Mr Bristles,
resuming his chair. "I don't believe so noble an intellect was ever
enshrined in so beautiful a form before."

"Do you think her pretty?" enquired Mr Pitskiver.

"Pretty? no, sir--beautiful! Here is the finest sort of
loveliness--the light blazing from within, that years cannot
extinguish. I consider Miss Hendy the finest woman in England; and
decidedly the most intellectual."

The fact of Miss Hendy's beauty had never struck Mr Pitskiver before.
But he knew that Bristles was a judge, and took it at once for
granted. The finest woman in England had looked in a most marvellous
manner into his face, and the small incident of the foot under the
table was not forgotten.

Mr Pitskiver was inspired by the subject of his contemplations, and
proposed her health in a strain of eloquence which produced a
wonderful amount of head-shaking from Mr Whalley, and frequent
exclamations of "Demosthenes," "Cicero," "Burke all over!" from the
more enraptured Mr Bristles.

"I'm horrible afear'd," observed the elder gentleman putting down his
empty glass, "as my son Bill Whalley is a reg'lar fool."

"Oh, pardon me!" exclaimed Bristles--"I haven't the, honour of his
intimacy, but--" "Only think the liberties he allows himself in
regard to this here intellectual lady, Miss Hendy. He never hears her
name without a putting of his thumb on the top of his nose, and a
shaking of his fingers in my face, and a crying out for a friend of
his'n of the name of Walker. Its uncomming provoking--and sich a
steady good business hand there ain't in the Boro'. I can't fadom it."

"Some people have positively no souls," chimed in Mr Pitskiver,
looking complacently down his beautiful waistcoat, as if he felt that
souls were in some sort of proportion to the tenements they inhabited,
and that his was of gigantic size; "but I did not think that your son
William was so totally void of ideas. I shall talk to him next
S