a person of some consideration
on the premises, inasmuch as he occupied the whole of the first floor,
comprising a suite of two rooms. Mrs Kenwigs, too, was quite a lady in
her manners, and of a very genteel family, having an uncle who collected
a water-rate; besides which distinction, the two eldest of her little
girls went twice a week to a dancing school in the neighbourhood, and
had flaxen hair, tied with blue ribbons, hanging in luxuriant pigtails
down their backs; and wore little white trousers with frills round the
ankles--for all of which reasons, and many more equally valid but too
numerous to mention, Mrs Kenwigs was considered a very desirable person
to know, and was the constant theme of all the gossips in the street,
and even three or four doors round the corner at both ends.

It was the anniversary of that happy day on which the Church of England
as by law established, had bestowed Mrs Kenwigs upon Mr Kenwigs; and in
grateful commemoration of the same, Mrs Kenwigs had invited a few select
friends to cards and a supper in the first floor, and had put on a new
gown to receive them in: which gown, being of a flaming colour and made
upon a juvenile principle, was so successful that Mr Kenwigs said the
eight years of matrimony and the five children seemed all a dream, and
Mrs Kenwigs younger and more blooming than on the very first Sunday he
had kept company with her.

Beautiful as Mrs Kenwigs looked when she was dressed though, and so
stately that you would have supposed she had a cook and housemaid
at least, and nothing to do but order them about, she had a world
of trouble with the preparations; more, indeed, than she, being of a
delicate and genteel constitution, could have sustained, had not the
pride of housewifery upheld her. At last, however, all the things that
had to be got together were got together, and all the things that had to
be got out of the way were got out of the way, and everything was ready,
and the collector himself having promised to come, fortune smiled upon
the occasion.

The party was admirably selected. There were, first of all, Mr Kenwigs
and Mrs Kenwigs, and four olive Kenwigses who sat up to supper; firstly,
because it was but right that they should have a treat on such a day;
and secondly, because their going to bed, in presence of the company,
would have been inconvenient, not to say improper. Then, there was a
young lady who had made Mrs Kenwigs's dress, and who--it was the m