Ask Mamma

ose late occupants were now swinging their arms about in all the exertion of tying up their mouths, and fighting their ways into their over-coats, Mr. Pr

as a gentleman does his partner at the end of an old country dance. How exultingly he marched her through the line of inn hangers-on, hostlers, waiters, porters, post-boys, coachmen, and insati

the last act of attention for his money. In went Billy and the beauty, or rather the beauty and Billy, bang went the door, the outsiders scrambled up on to their perches and shelves as best they could. "All right! Sit tight!" was presently heard, and whip

inal

business with it. He believed Want-nothin'-but-what's-right would be glad if he never married. Just then the coach glid from the noisy pavement on to the comparatively speaking silent macadamised road, and Billy and the lady opened fire simultaneously, the lady about the discomforts of coach-travelling, which she had never tried before, and Billy about the smack of the Teneriffe, which he thought very earthy. He had some capital wine at home, he said, as everybody has. This led him to London, the street conveniences or inconveniences as they then were of the metropolis, which subject he plied for the purpose of finding out as well where the lady lived as whether her carriage would meet her or not; but this she skilfull

-"Part of

ng the seaso

ing the sitting

and such nice hair-he'd give a fipun note for a kiss!-he'd give a tenpun note for a kiss!-dashed if he wouldn't give a fifty-pun for a kiss. Then he wondered what Head-and-shoulders Smith would think of her. As he didn't seem to be making much progress, however, in the information way, he now desisted from t

er, on second thoughts, he felt might be rather favourable, inasmuch as she wouldn't see when he was

?" at length asked Billy, in a st

lady with a smile; "I n

Billy, taken aback, especially as

d he, thinking to try and fix her locality

out of the season-there was no place l

the best place in summer, a

he had to choose either place for a

sea, as he exultingly called it, thinking what a tuck-out he would have in revenge for his country inn abstinence. He then got upon the splendour of his own house in Doughty Street-the most agreeable in London. Its spacious entrance, its elegant stone staircase; his beautiful drawingroom, with its maroon and rose-coloured brocaded satin damas

ly, lowering the window

e tête-à-tête was at an end. The guard was going to put Pheasant-feather bonne

, who seem to think all they have to do is to see people past the door. As it was, the new-comer alighted upon Billy, who cannoned her off against the opposite door, and then made himself as big as he could, the better to incommode her. Pheasant-feathers, however, having effected an entrance, seemed to regard herself as good as her neighbours, and forthwith proceeded to adjust the window to her liking, despite the eyeing and staring of Miss Willing. Billy was i

. Her glazy gloves might be any colour-black, brown, green, gray. Then a qualm shot across Miss Willing's mind that she had seen the pelisse before. Yes, no, yes; she believed it was the very one she had sold to Mrs. Pickles' nursery governess for eighteen shillings. So it was. She had stripped the fur edging off herself, and there were the marks. Who could the wearer be? Where could she have got it

htful face beside him. Billy saw the fair lady was not accustomed to these sort of companions, and wished he had only had the sense to book the rest of the inside when the coach stopped to dine. However, it could not be helped now; so, having ascertained that Pheasant-feathers was going all the way to "Lunnnn," as she called it, wh

omitting, of course, to mention that it had been fitted up to suit the taste of another lady, who had jilted him. He began about his dining-room, twenty-five feet by eighteen,

h Billy explained was entered by a door at the top of the back stairs, six feet nine by two feet eight, covered on both sides with crimson cloth, brass moulded in panels and mortise latch. He then got upon the endless, but "never-lady-tiring," subject of bed-rooms-his best bed-room, with a most elegant five-feet-three canopy-top, mahogany b

never even entered her head in any other light than that of an agreeable companion. This was Miss Amelia Titterton, afterwards Mrs. Sanderson. Another lady, as we said before (Miss Bowerbank), had done worse; for she had regularly jilted him, after putting him to no end of expense in furnishing his house, so that, upon the whole, Billy had cause to be cautious. A coach, too, with its jolts and its jerks, and its brandy-and-w

avy lumbering coach, was accompanied by Billy's maunderings about his noble ebony this, and splendid mahogany that, varied with, here and there, a judicious interpolation of an

est both the other ladies had taken in his family, furniture, and effects. Indeed, as he felt, they all took much the same course, for, for cool home-questioning, there is no man can compete with an exper

proaching the metropolis. The gaunt elms and leafless poplars presently became fewer, while castellated and sentry-box-looking summer-houses stood dark in the little paled-off gardens. At last the villas, and semi-detached villas, collapsed into one continuous gas-lit shop-dotted street. The shops soon became better and more frequent,-more ribbons and flowers, and

ly, for it was just the very thing she most dread

all five-and-twenty per cent.-"Miss Tittert

nto his ear, thinking by Billy's silence that her vehemence had offended him; "but," continued she, "I'm only going

sp)-"Green Man," ejaculated Billy, the fund

d Miss Willing, "and I fee

'd never find your way to Brompton in this nasty dense yellow

xclaimed Miss Willing, amused at this

ll only be too happy to escort you,"

born, Miss showed her knowledge of it by intimating to Billy that that was the place for him to alight; so taking off her glove she tendered

s going to a friend's at No. -, Grosvenor Square, that she would only be in town for a couple of nights; but that if he really wished to see her again,-"really w

it oot there," by alighting. And he was so excited that he walked off, leaving his new silk umbrella and all his luggage in the coach, exclaiming, as he worked his way through the fog to Doughty Street, "No.--, Gruvenor Square-eight o'clock-eight o'clock-No.--, Gruvenor Square-was there ever su

u don't know me!-you don't know me!" sounded from under the phea

it?" ejaculated she, t

," replied the voice, in

ef that ever came about a place, the daughter of a most notorious poacher. "So it is!

replied Sarah; "I used often to

s Willing would now rather have forgotten, how thankful she was that the creature had not introduced herself when her fat friend was in the co

acles, for which a donkey-travelling general merchant had given her seven and sixpence), the guard of the coach, who was her great-uncle, had given her a lift up to town to try what she could do

e's half a sovereign for you," handing it to her, "and if you'll come to me at six o'clock to-morrow eve

Sarey, delighted at the idea. "

y lord's own man; he's hall-porter now, ring and tell

nt-feathers, thinking how much more magnific

alighted and took a coach to Grosvenor Square, leaving Miss G

s," appeased the basket-woman's wrath, was presently

,-down goes the curtain on