nd that poor Bob
was a sad dog in his youth; "a very sad dog, Sir; mightily set upon a
short life and a merry one."

When he gets very old indeed, he will sit for whole evenings, and say
little or nothing; but informs you, that there is Mrs. Jones (the
housekeeper)--"_She_'ll talk."

_Leigh Hunt._

THE OLD LADY

If the Old Lady is a widow and lives alone, the manners of her
condition and time of life are so much the more apparent. She
generally dresses in plain silks, that make a gentle rustling as she
moves about the silence of her room; and she wears a nice cap with a
lace border, that comes under the chin. In a placket at her side is an
old enamelled watch, unless it is locked up in a drawer of her toilet,
for fear of accidents. Her waist is rather tight and trim than
otherwise, as she had a fine one when young; and she is not sorry if
you see a pair of her stockings on a table, that you may be aware of
the neatness of her leg and foot. Contented with these and other
evident indications of a good shape, and letting her young friends
understand that she can afford to obscure it a little, she wears
pockets, and uses them well too. In the one is her handkerchief, and
any heavier matter that is not likely to come out with it, such as the
change of a sixpence; in the other is a miscellaneous assortment,
consisting of a pocket-book, a bunch of keys, a needle-case, a
spectacle-case, crumbs of biscuit, a nutmeg and grater, a
smelling-bottle, and, according to the season, an orange or apple,
which after many days she draws out, warm and glossy, to give to some
little child that has well behaved itself. She generally occupies two
rooms, in the neatest condition possible. In the chamber is a bed with
a white coverlet, built up high and round, to look well, and with
curtains of a pastoral pattern, consisting alternately of large
plants, and shepherds and shepherdesses. On the mantelpiece are more
shepherds and shepherdesses, with dot-eyed sheep at their feet, all in
coloured ware: the man, perhaps, in a pink jacket and knots of ribbons
at his knees and shoes, holding his crook lightly in one hand, and
with the other at his breast, turning his toes out and looking
tenderly at the shepherdess: the woman holding a crook also, and
modestly returning his look, with a gipsy-hat jerked up behind, a very
slender waist, with petticoat and hips to _counteract_, and the
petticoat pulled up through the pocket-holes, in ord