ominently forward in the person of an ass."

"An ass?--I don't understand! Are you serious?"

"Serious! to be sure, my dear Bristles. In spite of all efforts to
assume an intellectual expression, the donkey, depend upon it,
preponderates--the long visage, the dull eyes, the crooked legs--it is
impossible to perceive any grace in such a wretched animal. I can't
help thinking that if it had been a young girl you had brought
me--say, a sleeping nymph--full of youth and beauty, 'twould have been
a vast improvement on the scraggy jeanie contained in this box. But
clear away, Bristles, we are all impatience."

"My dear sir--Mr Pitskiver--unaccustomed as I am, his I can truly say
is the most uncomfortable moment of my life."

"Why, what's the matter with you, Bristles, can't you untie the
string?"--"Here," continued Mr Pitskiver, "give me the cord," and so
saying he untwisted it in a moment--down fell the side of the case,
and to the astonished eyes of the assembled critics, and also of the
party in the back drawing-room, revealed, not the masterpiece of the
immortal Stickleback, but a female figure enveloped in a grey silk
cloak, and covering its face with a white muslin handkerchief.

"Why, what the mischief is all this?" exclaimed the bewildered Mr
Pitskiver; "this isn't the jeanie-ass you promised me a sight of. Who
the deuce is this?"

The handkerchief was majestically removed, and the sharp eyes of Miss
Hendy fixed in unspeakable disdain on the assembled party.

"'Tis I, base man! Are all your protestations of admiration come to
this? Who shall doubt hereafter that it is the task of noble, gentle,
self-denying woman to elevate society?"

A smothered but very audible laugh proceeding from the back
drawing-room, interrupted the further eloquence of the regenerator of
mankind; and, finding concealment useless, the two young ladies threw
open the door, and advanced with their attendant lovers to the table.
The female philosopher, with the assistance of Mr Bristles, descended
from her lofty pedestal, and looked unutterable basilisks at the
open-mouthed Maecenas, who turned his eyes from the wooden box to Miss
Hendy, and from Miss Hendy to the wooden box, without trusting himself
with a word of either explanation or enquiry.

"We told you of our intentions, papa," said Miss Sophia, "if you
brought that old lady to your house."

"I didn't bring her; I give you my honour 'twas that scoundrel
Bristles," whispered the