seven. Very much
obliged to him: the "fool of the family" might have waited a long while
for it.

While I was reading this letter the waiter came up to say that a young
woman below wanted to speak to me. I desired her to be shown up. As
soon as she came in, she burst into tears, knelt down, and kissed my
hand. "Sure, it's you--oh! yes--it's you that saved my poor husband
when I was assisting to your ruin. And a'n't I punished for my wicked
doings--a'n't my poor boy dead?"

She said no more, but remained on her knees sobbing bitterly. Of course
the reader recognises in her the wet-nurse who had exchanged her child.
I raised her up, and desired her to apply to my solicitor to pay her
expenses, and leave her address.

"But do you forgive me, Mr Simple? It's not that I have forgiven
myself."

"I do forgive you with all my heart, my good woman. You have been
punished enough."

"I have, indeed," replied she, sobbing; "but don't I deserve it all, and
more too? God's blessing, and all the saints' too, upon your head, for
your kind forgiveness, anyhow. My heart is lighter." And she quitted
the room.

She had scarcely quitted the hotel, when the waiter came up again.
"Another lady, my lord, wishes to speak with you; but she won't give her
name."

"Really, my lord, you seem to have an extensive female acquaintance,"
said the general.

"At all events, I am not aware of any that I need be ashamed of. Show
the lady up, waiter."

In a moment entered a fat unwieldy little mortal, very warm from
walking; she sat down in a chair, threw back her tippet, and then
exclaimed, "Lord bless you, how you have grown! gemini, if I can hardly
believe my eyes; and I declare he don't know me."

"I really cannot exactly recollect were I had the pleasure of seeing you
before, madam."

"Well, that's what I said to Jemima, when I went down in the kitchen,
`Jemima,' says I, `I wonder if little Peter Simple will know me.' And
Jemima says, `I think he would the parrot, marm.'"

"Mrs Handycock, I believe," said I, recollecting Jemima and the parrot,
although, from a little thin woman, she had grown so fat as not to be
recognisable.

"Oh! so you've found me out, Mr Simple--my lord, I ought to say. Well,
I need not ask after your grandfather now, for I know he's dead; but as
I was coming this way for orders, I thought I would just step in and see
how you looked."

"I trust Mr Handycock is well, ma'am. Pray is he a bull or a