wetting her eyes
with lavender water. 'I'm afraid of Howel and those grand people. I wish
he hadn't asked them.'

'Oh, for sham! Netta. There they are, I shouldn't wonder! Yes indeet!
says Mrs Jenkins, 'I hear them talking on the stairs.'

A knock at the bedroom door is followed by the entrance of two ladies,
apparently mother and daughter; the former a portly and roseate dame,
clad in the richest of brocades and white lace shawls--the latter a thin
and somewhat yellow damsel, a tired in white and pink bonnet and mantle
to match, evidently in bridesmaid's gear.

'Ah I how charming! how beautiful! what a country-flower in London
leaves!' exclaim the ladies, rushing up to Netta and kissing her. 'Good
morning, Mrs Jenkins, your son has chosen a bewitching young person
indeed!'

'Treue for your ladyship,' says Mrs Jenkins, making her very best
curtsey, as the ladies alternately shake hands with her.

'Your ladyship' is no less a person than Lady Simpson, the wife of Sir
John Simpson, a gentleman who acquired that title on an occasion when
William the Fourth, of blessed memory, was feted in the city. Sir John,
having made a considerable fortune in trade, and being blessed with a
helpmate of an aspiring mind, has removed from his old neighbourhood to
that of Hyde Park, where he is spending the money he earned on the
general advancement of his family. This family consists of a son and
daughter, who have been highly educated according to the general
acceptation of the term. With the son Howel is very intimate, and
through him he has long been known to the rest of the family; but it is
only since his vast accession of wealth that he has had the
distinguished honour of claiming Sir John and Lady Simpson as his
particular friends. To them he confided his intended marriage with a
beautiful cousin, who, for family reasons, was coming to London, he
said, under his mother's protection, to be united to him. They had
called on Mrs Jenkins and Netta the previous day, and were invited to
the wedding in the various capacities of father, bridesman, and
bridesmaid. Previously to their making his mother's acquaintance, Howel
informed them that being Welsh, she naturally spoke the language of her
country, and was so patriotic that she disliked any other; and said that
they must not be surprised at her peculiar English, which was simply a
translation of the Welsh idioms into what, to her, was a foreign tongue.
He also gave his mother an