. After a
preparatory hem! and a glance at the mirror to ascertain that her look
was sufficiently sentimental, the poetess began:--

"There is a calm, a holy feeling,
Vulgar minds, can never know,
O'er the bosom softly stealing,--
Chasten'd grief, delicious woe!
Oh! how sweet at eve regaining
Yon lone tower's sequester'd shade--
Sadly mute and uncomplaining----"

"--Yow!--yeough!--yeough!--yow!--yow!" yelled a hapless sufferer from
beneath the table. It was an unlucky hour for quadrupeds; and if "every
dog will have his day," he could not have selected a more unpropitious
one than this. Mrs. Ogleton, too, had a pet--a favorite pug--whose squab
figure, black muzzle, and tortuosity of tail, that curled like a head of
celery in a salad-bowl, bespoke his Dutch extraction. Yow! yow! yow!
continued the brute--a chorus in which Flo instantly joined. Sooth to
say, pug had more reason to express his dissatisfaction than was given
him by the muse of Simpkinson; the other only barked for company.
Scarcely had the poetess got through her first stanza, when Tom
Ingoldsby, in the enthusiasm of the moment, became so lost in the
material world, that, in his abstraction, he unwarily laid his hand on
the cock of the urn. Quivering with emotion, he gave it such an unlucky
twist, that the full stream of its scalding contents descended on the
gingerbread hide of the unlucky Cupid. The confusion was complete; the
whole economy of the table disarranged--the company broke up in most
admired disorder--and "vulgar minds will never know" anything more of
Miss Simpkinson's ode till they peruse it in some forthcoming Annual.

Seaforth profited by the confusion to take the delinquent who had caused
this "stramash" by the arm, and to lead him to the lawn, where he had a
word or two for his private ear. The conference between the young
gentlemen was neither brief in its duration nor unimportant in its
result. The subject was what the lawyers call tripartite, embracing the
information that Charles Seaforth was over head and ears in love with
Tom Ingoldsby's sister; secondly, that the lady had referred him to
"papa" for his sanction; thirdly, and lastly, his nightly visitations
and consequent bereavement. At the two first times Tom smiled
suspiciously--at the last he burst out into an absolute "guffaw."

"Steal your breeches! Miss Bailey over again, by Jove," shouted
Ingoldsby. "But a gentleman, you say--and Sir G