wildered and very much astonished at the laughing faces that met her gaze.

"Why bless my heart, John Coachman! La, Mister Rackstraw," she cried at last turning from one to the other. "I've been dreaming surely!"

"Both surely and securely, Mrs. Molly," replied the butler; and then there was another laugh, which the fiery head of the kitchen was in doubt whether to be angry or amused with. However, before she could make up her mind, the door opened, and a new actor entered upon the scene who completely took off her attention.

He was a young man of a genteel figure and handsome, but effeminate features, his hair carefully powdered and dressed in the reigning mode, and his person as carefully clothed in the Lepel livery; for in spite of his affected elegance of manner and his genteel appearance, he was no more important a personage than James, the Brigadier's new footman.

Nevertheless, though his station was humble, James had managed in the few days he had passed at Petersham Manor, to create a very decided impression of his consequence upon the majority of his fellow servants. Even Mrs. Molly was mollified whenever, with his careless vet not

graceful behaviour, he presented himself before her.

His manners had something in them superior to all footmen of her acquaintance, which boasted of a list of no mean length; and although there could be little doubt this was merely given at second hand from some polished original, in whose service he had been, it went a great way in his favour in the kitchen, and in the servant's hall worked wonders.

John Coachman, though he never could tell why, always looked up to him with an air of respect, and Pompey never met his glance, but he grinned his approbation, as he gazed in mingled wonder and gratification. The gardener was heard to mutter something very much resembling the word "Puppy," when James was once shewing off his gentility a little stronger than usual; and there was every reason to believe he held him in mortal aversion. The butler, like a prudent man as he was, whatever opinion he had of the new comer kept to himself, but behaved to him with his usual cordiality.

As to the girls, Mrs. Kitty and Mrs. Lucy, they were completely fascinated and captivated, and each rivalled the other as far as she dared in the

presence of the dreaded Mrs. Molly, in shewing their new fellow-servant the most encouraging attentions. They made way for him to sit between them, as he lounged lazily towards the table humming an air, and taking a pinch of snuff from a large round box, with a figure of Cupid on the lid. Then as if to shew the polish of his manners, he with the air of a sovereign to a Duchess, presented the open box to Mrs. Molly, who with a profusion of the properest phrases she could think of, though in quite as great a fluster as if the compliment had been paid her by a nobleman, inserted her fat red fingers into the pungent powder and applied it liberally to her capacious nostrils.

Whilst she was shewing by a series of sternutations loud enough to be heard throughout the house, the efficacy of the snuff, the polite and agreeable new comer was handing the box to the butler and the coachman, who pipe in hand, rose from their chairs to acknowledge the civility in a way becoming their superior positions; then placing it on the table between the smiling and blushing girls, without deigning to bestow a look on the draught players, he took the seat that had been offered to him.

"Stab my vitals, child!" he exclaimed, addressing Mrs. Kitty, and drawing a perfumed handkerchief over the lower part of his face, "you seem, to-night, positively to have lost your agreeable spirits. May I be allowed to inquire what has been the subject of your conversation, to have had so terrible and disastrous an effect on you, and all this good company."

"La, bless your heart, Mr. James," cried John Coachman, who was never known to be backward when a spokesman was required, "we were merely speaking of our young Madam; and I had just said I considered it a burning shame so pretty and admirable a creature should go to Court to have any thing to do with them German things as are the leaders of the team there."

"Well, I've heard of those Hanoverian hussies," exclaimed Mrs. Molly, a flash of indignation breaking over her already too illuminated countenance. "I'm ashamed of King George! Couldn't he find plenty of English women, that he should disgrace himself with a pack of greedy foreigners?"

"Perhaps, Mrs. Molly, he couldn't find any women in this country sufficiently plain to please him," remarked the new comer in his drawling

tone, as he handed the snuff box from Mrs. Lucy

to Mrs. Kitty.

66

Perhaps," added John, after a powerful sneeze, "he could find none bad enough."

"I have seen the persons to whom our esteemed friend, John Coachman alludes,” replied the footman. "Both the Schulenberg and the Kielmansegge; and am ready to aver, pon my life! that a cross between a pug-dog and a toadfish, could never be half so abominably and atrociously hideous as either of them."

There was a general laugh at this extravagant simile, in which Mrs. Molly might be heard above every one.

"But pon my life!" drawled out their fellow servant, "I take the very fact of the Court being disgraced by such insufferable monsters, as an unanswerable argument for the presence of some of our most irresistible beauties. In sober truth, I shall be obliged to give up going to Court, if something is not done shortly to make the place more agreeable. Positively the present state of things is quite shocking." Here he helped himself to a pinch of snuff. "Quite insufferable to any man of sensibility or refinement-stab my

vitals!"