Howffend and Mrs. Gawffaw! ha, ha, ha! This will be a surprise
upon her. She thinks I'm in my barn all this time--ha, ha, ha!"

Mr. Douglas here began to express his astonishment at his friend's
precipitation, and his apprehensions as to the trouble they might
occasion Mrs. Gawffaw; but bursts of laughter and broken expressions of
delight were the only replies he could procure from his friend.

After jolting over half a mile of very bad road, the carriage
stopped at a mean vulgar-looking mansion, with dirty windows, ruinous
thatched offices, and broken fences.

Such was the picture of still life. That of animated nature was not less
picturesque. Cows bellowed, and cart-horses neighed, and pigs grunted,
and geese gabbled, and ducks quacked, and cocks and hens flapped and
fluttered promiscuously, as they mingled in a sort of yard divided from
the house by a low dyke, possessing the accommodation of a crazy gate,
which was bestrode by a parcel of bare-legged boys.

"What are you about, you confounded rascals?" called Mr. Gawffaw to
them.

"Naething," answered one.

"We're just takin' a heize on the yett," answered another.

"I'll heize ye, ye scoundrels!" exclaimed the incensed Mr. Gawffaw, as
he burst from the carriage; and, snatching the driver's whip from his
hand, flew after the more nimble-footed culprits.

Finding his efforts to overtake them in vain, here turned to the door of
his mansion, where stood his guests, waiting to be ushered in. He opened
the door himself, and led the way to a parlour which was quite of a piece
with the exterior of the dwelling. A dim dusty table stood in the middle
of the floor, heaped with a variety of heterogeneous articles of dress;
an exceeding dirty volume of a novel lay open amongst them. The floor
was littered with shapings of flannel, and shreds of gauzes, ribbons,
etc. The fire was almost out, and the hearth was covered with ashes.

After insisting upon his guests being seated, Mr. Gawffaw walked to the
door of the apartment, and hallooed out, "Mrs. Gawffaw,--ho! May, my
dear!--I say, Mrs. Gawffaw!"

A low, croaking, querulous voice was now heard in reply, "For heaven's
sake, Mr. Gawffaw, make less noise! For God's sake, have mercy on the
walls of your house, if you've none on my poor head!" And thereupon
entered Mrs. Gawffaw, a cap in one hand, which she appeared to have
been tying on--a smelling-bottle in the other.

She possessed a considerable share of insipid an