rity and talent which shewed how good a housewife the scribbling mania had spoiled, Mrs. Fitzcribb, aided by "Milton," Milton," "Johnson," "Swift," and "Sappho," cleared away all litters, completed Fitzcribb's hair-dressing, wrapped him in his best dressing-gown, removed his foot-bath, gave him his shoes and stockings, rearranged the tea-table, and gave a very tolerable air of comfort to the whole room. Mrs. Fitzcribb also tore out her own curl-papers, and, rushing into another room, appeared in a gay turban, and a large scarlet shawl. She had too much pride and taste to apologize for her dress; but she was a beauty, and she could not bear to be thought a fright.

As for poor Corinna, like Thisbe, she "saw the lion's shadow ere himself, and ran, dismayed, away." In other words, she caught a slight reflection, in her looking-glass, of Grunter's heavy face; and on the wall the shadow of an uncouth form was traced by Fitzcribb's tallow-candle. She had made her toilet in the "drawing-room," because Mrs. Fitzcribb had caused the "gal" whom Sally so despised

- to

the agent of all her mismanagement commence a scrubbing of all the bed-rooms by the light of the rising moon.

Mrs. Fitzcribb was often seized with a "scouring mania" at the most unpropitious of moments. Sometimes she had the chimneysweeps on days when Fitzcribb had a friend or two to dinner; contrived to have a wash when wet weather set in; and, in a hard frost, once had the carpets taken up, and the curtains down. She had a sort of general idea that these things ought to be done, and having neglected them at the proper season, she added tenfold to her fault by insisting on poor Kitty's doing them at the most inconvenient times; owing to this wretched mismanagement, poor Corinna was obliged, in thin shoes and a gauze dress, to go and complete her toilet in a wet room, making her way, in doing so, through piles of dust and tea-leaves, which a gust of wind from the window, opened by Kitty that the night-air might dry the room, blew all over her dress and stockings.

Here, in a little while, she was joined by her

eldest brother, Milton-a clever and handsome youth who was to attend her to Mrs. Mac Dactyl's, and who, in the dark passage, had upset Kitty's bucket over his pumps and only pair of silk stockings. He came in, invoking more fiends than his immortal namesake has introduced. What was to be done?

Kitty, who looked like a female chimneysweep, offered a pair of open-'oork stockings of her own, as had only a few 'oles as could be easy run up. But that would not do; Milton Fitzcribb could not go to a literary soirée at Mrs. Mac Dactyl's, in Kitty's open work stockings. Drawers were pulled open, but nothing could be found in them; older people would have given up the party altogether; but a beau of sixteen, and a beauty of fifteen, would rather go through fire and water. at last Kitty, with more practical genius than either "Milton" or "Corinna" had displayed, hit upon a plan. She washed out the stockings, borrowed of Corinna "The Wreath of Fashion" with the " Lady's Newest Costumes," and a tale called "The Deed of

So

Blood," or "Bertha's Bridegroom ;" and, thus armed, she went down to Sally's blazing kitchen-fire, like many others, with an interested motive, hidden under an apparently disinterested service. She, while the vain Sally was looking at the fashions, adroitly dried the stockings, and bore them in triumph to poor "Milton," who sate with the ill-fated Corinna, now shivering with cold, now burning with impatience. Kitty, much praised and thanked, lighted the party-goers down stairs, saw them set off, and then returned to her scrubbing-brush and pail.

CHAPTER XXIX.

"But for the children of the mighty mother's,
The would-be wits, and can't be gentlemen;
I leave them to their daily tea is ready,'
Snug coterie, and literary lady."

BYRON.

When Johnson was ordered to open the door of Mr. Grunter's prison, Mrs. Fitzcribb sate in her turban and shawl, with all the air of a sultana, on an old sofa, over which she had hastily thrown Fitzcribb's cloak. Mr. Fitzcribb was ready to receive him, and Sappho was waiting, while Swift made the water boil.

Mr. Grunter entered, a large streak of the dust of Hume and Smollet all across his brow and cheek, and his wig perched quite awry. But of these mishaps he was unaware, and, therefore, with a ludicrous look of im