nd laughing together, "you may. For, please
God, we'll make a scholar of the poor Marchioness yet. And she shall
walk in silk attire, and siller have to spare, or may I never rise from
this bed again!"

Mr. Swiveller, recovering very slowly from his illness, even with the
strong tonic of his good fortune, and entering into the receipt of his
annuity, bought for the Marchioness a handsome stock of clothes, and put
her to school forthwith, in redemption of the vow he had made upon his
fevered bed.

After casting about for some time for a name which should be worthy of
her, he decided in favor of Sophronia Sphynx, as being euphonious and
genteel, and, furthermore, indicative of mystery. Under this title the
Marchioness repaired in tears to the school of his selection, from
which, as she soon distanced all competitors, she was removed before the
lapse of many quarters to one of a higher grade. It is but bare justice
to Mr. Swiveller to say that although the expense of her education kept
him in straightened circumstances for half-a-dozen years, he never
slackened in his zeal, and always held himself sufficiently repaid by
the accounts he heard of her advancement.

In a word, Mr. Swiveller kept the Marchioness at this establishment
until she was, at a moderate guess, full nineteen years of age, at which
time, thanks to her earliest friend and most loyal champion, Richard
Swiveller, the shadows of a bitter past had been chased from her memory
by a happy present, and she was as good-looking, clever, and
good-humored a young woman as ever a real Marchioness might have been.

MORLEENA KENWIGS

[Illustration: THE KENWIGSES]

MORLEENA KENWIGS

The family who went by the designation of "The Kenwigses" were the wife
and olive branches of one Mr. Kenwigs, a turner in ivory, who was looked
upon as a person of some consideration where he lodged, inasmuch as he
occupied the whole of the first floor, comprising a suite of two rooms.
Mrs. Kenwigs too, was quite a lady in her manners, and of a very genteel
family, having an uncle, Mr. Lillyvick, who collected a water-rate, and
who she fondly hoped, would make her children his heirs. Besides which
distinction, the two eldest of her little girls went twice a week to a
dancing-school in the neighborhood, and had flaxen hair tied with blue
ribbons, hanging in luxuriant pigtails down their backs, and wore little
white trousers with frills round the ankles;--for all of which r