ve an hour."

"Dear! I hope you did not wait for me. I shall be quite shocked!"
drawled out her ladyship in a tone denoting how very indifferent the
answer would be to her.

"I beg your ladyship would be under no uneasiness on that account,"
replied the General in an ironical tone, which, though lost upon her,
was obvious enough to Henry.

"Have you breakfasted?" asked Lady Juliana, exerting herself to be
polite.

"Absurd, my love!" cried her husband. "Do you suppose I should have
allowed the General to wait for that too all this time, if he had not
breakfasted many hours ago?"

"How cross you are this morning, my Harry! I protest my Cupidon is quite
ashamed of your _grossierete! "_

A servant now entered to say Mr. Shagg was come to know her ladyship's
final decision about the hammer-cloths; and the new footman was come to
be engaged; and the china merchant was below.

"Send up one of them at a time; and as to the footman, you may say I'll
have him at once," said Lady Juliana.

"I thought you had engaged Mrs. D.'s footman last week. She gave him
the best character, did she not?" asked her husband.

"Oh yes! his character was good enough; but he was a horrid cheat for
all that. He called himself five feet nine, and when he was measured he
turned out to be only five feet seven and a half."

"Pshaw!" exclaimed Henry angrily. "What the devil did that signify if
the man had a good character?"

"How absurdly you talk, Harry, as if a man's character signified who has
nothing to do but to stand behind my carriage! A pretty figure he'd made
there beside Thomas, who is at least five feet ten!"

The entrance of Mr. Shagg, bowing and scraping, and laden with cloths,
lace, and fringes, interrupted the conversation.

"Well, Mr. Shagg," cried Lady Juliana, "what's to be done with that
odious leopard's skin? You must positively take it off my hands. I would
rather never go in a carriage again as show myself in the Park with that
frightful thing."

"Certainly, my Lady," replied the obsequious Mr. Shagg, "anything your
Ladyship pleases; your Ladyship can have any hammer-cloth you like; and
I have accordingly brought patterns of the very newest fashions for your
Ladyship to make choice. Here are some uncommon elegant articles. At the
same time, my Lady, your Ladyship must be sensible that it is impossible
that we can take back the leopard's skin. It was not only cut out to fit
your Ladyship's coach-box--and consequently