creature is on the whist-table. Oh, the wretch!

"I'm sure he's very good-looking," said Lucy, simply.

Lady Gorgon darted at her an angry look, and was about to say something
very contemptuous, when, at that instant, John Perkins's shout taking
effect, Master George Augustus Frederick Grimsby Gorgon, not knowing
better, incontinently raised a small shout on his side.

"Hear! good! bravo!" exclaimed he; "Scully for ever! Hurra-a-a-ay!" and
fell skipping about like the Whigs opposite.

"Silence, you brute you!" groaned Lady Gorgon; and seizing him by the
shirt-frill and coat-collar, carried him away to his nurse, who, with
many other maids of the Whig and Tory parties, stood giggling and
peeping at the landing-place.

Fancy how all these small incidents augmented the heap of Lady Gorgon's
anger and injuries! She was a dull phlegmatic woman for the most part,
and contented herself generally with merely despising her neighbours;
but oh! what a fine active hatred raged in her bosom for victorious
Scully! At this moment Mr. Perkins had finished shaking hands with his
Napoleon--Napoleon seemed bent upon some tremendous enterprise. He was
looking at Lady Gorgon very hard.

"She's a fine woman," said Scully, thoughtfully; he was still holding
the hand of Perkins. And then, after a pause, "Gad! I think I'll try."

"Try what, sir?"

"She's a DEUCED fine woman!" burst out again the tender solicitor. "I
WILL go. Springer, tell the fiddlers to strike up."

Springer scuttled across the room, and gave the leader of the band a
knowing nod. Suddenly, "God save the King" ceased, and "Sir Roger
de Coverley" began. The rival forces eyed each other; Mr. Scully,
accompanied by his friend, came forward, looking very red, and fumbling
two large kid gloves.

"HE'S GOING TO ASK ME TO DANCE," hissed out Lady Gorgon, with a dreadful
intuition, and she drew back behind her lord.

"D---- it, madam, THEN DANCE with him!" said the General. "Don't you see
that the scoundrel is carrying it all his own way! ---- him! and ----
him! and ---- him!" (All of which dashes the reader may fill up with
oaths of such strength as may be requisite).

"General!" cried Lady Gorgon, but could say no more. Scully was before
her.

"Madam!" exclaimed the Liberal Member for Oldborough, "in a moment
like this--I say--that is--that on the present occasion--your
Ladyship--unaccustomed as I am--pooh, psha--WILL your Ladyship give me
the distinguished honour an