and so unlike the butchers’ wives of this day, who bedazzle themselves all the day long with cheap jewelry,)—­the beautiful swell of her marble bust, the sweet smile ever playing over her thoughtful face, the regularity of her Grecian features, and those great, languishing eyes, constantly flashing with the light of irresistible love.  Quoth ye! according to what Mr. Stepfast told Mrs. Stepfast, the young Baronet would, with the ideal of a real poet, as was he, have gone on recounting her charms until sundown, had not Mr. Stepfast invited him to a quiet family dinner.  And to confirm what Mr. Stepfast said, Miss Robbs had been seen by Mrs. Windspin looking in at Mrs. Stebbins’, the fashionable dress-maker, while the young Baronet had twice been at Spears’, in King Street, to select a diamond necklace of great value, which he left subject to the taste of Miss Robbs.  And putting them two and them two together there was something in it!”

“I am truly glad it’s nothing worse.  There has been so much scandal got up by vulgar people against our St. Cecilia.”

“Worse, Madam?” interpolates our hero, ere she has time to conclude her sentence, “the worst is to come yet.”

“And I’m a member of the society!” Mrs. Swiggs replies with a languishing sigh, mistaking the head of the cat for her Milton, and apologizing for her error as that venerable animal, having got well squeezed, sputters and springs from her grasp, shaking his head, “elected solely on the respectability of my family.”

Rather a collapsed member, by the way, Mr. Soloman thinks, contemplating her facetiously.

“Kindly proceed-proceed,” she says, twitching at her cap strings, as if impatient to get the sequel.

“Well, as to that, being a member of the St. Cecilia myself, you see, and always-(I go in for a man keeping up in the world)-maintaining a high position among its most distinguished members, who, I assure you, respect me far above my real merits, (Mrs. Swiggs says we won’t say anything about that now!) and honor me with all its secrets, I may, even in your presence, be permitted to say, that I never heard a member who didn’t speak in high praise of you and the family of which you are so excellent a representative.”

“Thank you-thank you.  O thank you, Mr. Soloman!” she rejoins.

“Why, Madam, I feel all my veneration getting into my head at once when I refer to the name of Sir Sunderland Swiggs.”

“But pray what came of the young Baronet?”

“Oh!—­as to him, why, you see, he was what we call-it isn’t a polite word, I confess-a humbug.”

“A Baronet a humbug!” she exclaims, fretting her hands and commencing to rock herself in the chair.