on foot, treading gingerly in pumps, escorted by linkmen with
flaring golden torches, and preceded by tipsy but assiduous ruffians
armed with shovels, who, with many a lusty oath and horrid imprecation,
cleared a thin thread of path between the towering walls of snow that
sparkled faintly in the gaslight.

This experience fired him. He rose up early, lay down late, and, quite
with her assent, cast the horoscope of Mrs. Merillia in the sweat of his
brow. He cast, we say, her horoscope and, from a certain conjunction of
the planets, he gathered, to his horror, that upon the fifteenth day of
the month of January she would suffer an accident while on an evening
jaunt. We find him now, on this fifteenth day of the first month, aware
of his revered grandmother's intrepid expedition to the Gaiety Theatre,
waiting her return to Berkeley Square with mingled feelings which we
might analyse for pages, but which we prefer baldly to state.

He longed to be proved indeed a prophet, and he longed also to see his
beloved relative return from her sheaf of pleasures in the free and
unconstrained use of all her graceful limbs. He was, therefore, torn
by foes in a mental conflict, and was in no case to sip the philosophic
honey of Marcus Aurelius as he sat between the telescope and the fire in
the comfortable drawing-room awaiting his grandmother's return.

"Gustavus," said Mr. Ferdinand in the servants' hall to the flushed
footman who lay upon a what-not, sipping a glass of ale and reading a
new and unabridged farthing edition of Carlyle's _French Revolution_,
"Gustavus, Mrs. Merillia has been and gone to the Gaiety Theatre
to-night. We expect her back at eleven-thirty sharp. She may need
assistance on her return, Gustavus."

The footman put down the tumbler which he was in the act of raising to
his pouted lips.

"Assistance, Mr. Ferdinand!" he ejaculated. "Mrs. Merillia, Mr.
Ferdinand!"

"She may--we say she _may_--have to be carried to bed, Gustavus."

Gustavus's jaw dropped, and the _French Revolution_ fluttered in his
startled hands.

"Good lawks, Mr. Ferdinand!" he exclaimed (not quoting from Carlyle).

"Have an armchair ready in the hall, Gustavus. Mrs. Merillia must not be
dropped. You understand? That will do, Gustavus."

And Mr. Ferdinand passed to the adjacent supper-table, to join the upper
housemaid in a discussion of two subjects that were very near to their
hearts, a round of beef and a tureen of pickled cabbage,