g-room.

"Bring him in--bring him in, Philistine! I always call my man
Philistine, because he has Sampson in his hands. Set him down there,"
pointing to an easy chair, as the group now entered, headed by Lady
Maclaughlan.

"Well, girls!" addressing the venerable spinsters, as they severally
exchanged a tender salute; "so you're all alive, I see;--humph!"

"Dear Lady Maclaughlan, allow me to introduce our beloved niece, Lady
Juliana Douglas," said Miss Grizzy, leading her up, and bridling as she
spoke with ill-suppressed exultation.

"So--you're very pretty--yes, you are very pretty!" kissing the
forehead, cheeks, and chin of the youthful beauty between every pause.
Then, holding her at arm's length, she surveyed her from head to foot,
with elevated brows, and a broad fixed stare.

"Pray sit down, Lady Maclaughlan," cried her three friends all at once,
each tendering a chair.

"Sit down!" repeated she; "why, what should I sit down for? I choose to
stand--I don't like to sit--I never sit at home--do I, Sir Sampson?"
turning to the little warrior, who, having been seized with a violent
fit of coughing on his entrance, had now sunk back, seemingly quite
exhausted, while the _Philistine_ was endeavouring to disencumber him of
his military accoutrements.

"How very distressing Sir Sampson's cough is!" said the sympathising
Miss Grizzy.

"Distressing, child! No--it's not the least distressing. How can a thing
be distressing that does no harm? He's much the better of it--it's the
only exercise he gets."

"Oh! well, indeed, if that's the case, it would be a thousand pities to
stop it," replied the accommodating spinster.

"No, it wouldn't be the least pity to stop it!" returned Lady
Maclaughlan, in her loud authoritative tone; "because, though it's not
distressing, it's very disagreeable. But it cannot be stopped--you might
as well talk of stopping the wind--it is a cradle cough."

"My dear Lady Maclaughlan!" screamed Sir Sampson in a shrill pipe, as he
made an effort to raise himself, and rescue his cough from this
aspersion; "how can you persist in saying so, when I have told you so
often it proceeds entirely from a cold caught a few years ago, when I
attended his Majesty at-----" Here a violent relapse carried the
conclusion of the sentence along with it.

"Let him alone-don't meddle with him," called his lady to the assiduous
nymphs who were bustling around him; "leave him to Philistine; he's in
very good ha