that my detestable neighbour had at last taken
himself off, and, throwing open the window again
to get a little air, begged and entreated her to
oblige me by resuming the charming conversation.

"Where was I?" inquired my distinguished
friend.

"You were telling me what you recommended
your poor darling to write inside her enclosure,"
I answered.

"Ah, yes—so I was. Well, my dear, she
controlled herself by an admirable effort, and
wrote exactly what I told her. You will excuse
a mother's partiality, I am sure—but I think I
never saw her look so lovely—so mournfully
lovely, I should say—as when she was writing
those last lines to the man who had so basely
trifled with her. The tears came into my eyes
as I looked at her sweet pale cheeks; and I
thought to myself——"

("Nurse! which of the children was sick,
last time, after eating onion sauce?")

He had come back again!—the monster had
come back again, from the very threshold
of the garden gate, to shout that
unwarrantably atrocious question in at his nursery
window!

Lady Malkinshaw bounced off her chair at
the first note of his horrible voice, and changed
towards me instantly—as if it had been my fault!
—in the most alarming and unexpected manner.
Her ladyship's face became awfully red; her
ladyship's head trembled excessively; her
ladyship's eyes looked straight into mine with an
indescribable fierceness.

"Why am I thus insulted?" inquired Lady
Malkinshaw, with a slow and dignified sternness
which froze the blood in my veins. "What do
you mean by it?" continued her ladyship, with
a sudden rapidity of utterance that quite took
my breath away.

Before I could remonstrate with my friend for
visiting her natural irritation on poor innocent
me: before I could declare that I had seen the
major actually open his garden gate to go away,
the provoking brute's voice burst in on us
again.

"Ha! yes?" we heard him growl to himself,
in a kind of shameless domestic soliloquy. "Yes,
yes, yes—Sophy was sick, to be sure. Curious.
All Mrs. Namby's step-children have weak chests
and strong stomachs. All Mrs. Namby's own
children have weak stomachs and strong chests.
I have a strong stomach and a strong chest.—
Pamby!"

"I consider this," continued Lady Malkinshaw,
literally glaring at me, in the fulness of
her indiscriminate exasperation—"I consider
this to be unwarrantable and unladylike. I beg
to know——"

"Where's Bill?" burst in the major, from
below, before she could add another word.
"Matilda! Nurse! Pamby! where's Bill? I
didn't bid Bill good-by—hold him up at the
window, one of you!"

"My dear Lady Malkinshaw," I remonstrated,
"why blame me? What have I done?"

"Done!" repeated her ladyship. " Done?—
all that is most unfriendly, most unwarrantable,
most unladylike, most——"

"Ha! ha! ha-a-a-a!" roared the major, shouting
her ladyship down, and stamping about the
garden in fits of fond paternal laughter. "Bill,
my boy, how are you? There's a young Turk
for you! Pull up his frock—I want to see his
jolly legs——"

Lady Malkinshaw screamed, and rushed to the
door. I sank into a chair, and clasped my hands
in despair.

"Ha! ha! ha-a-a-a! What calves the dog's
got! Pamby! look at his calves. Aha! bless
his heart, his legs are the model of his father's!
The Namby build, Matilda: the Namby build,
every inch of him. Kick again, Bill—kick out,
like mad. I say, ma'am!  I beg your pardon,
ma'am!——"

Ma'am? I ran to the window. Was the
major actually daring to address Lady Malkinshaw,
as she passed, indignantly, on her way out,
down my front garden? He was! The odious
monster was pointing out his—his, what shall I
say?—his undraped offspring to the notice of
my outraged visitor.

"Look at him, ma'am. If you're a judge of
children, look at him. There's a two-year-older
for you! Ha! ha! ha-a-a-a! Show the lady
your legs, Bill—kick out for the lady, you dog,
kick out!"

I can write no more: I have done great
violence to myself in writing so much. Further
specimens of the daily outrages inflicted on me
by my next door neighbour (though I could add
them by dozens), could do but little more to
illustrate the intolerable nature of the grievance
of which I complain. Although Lady Malkinshaw's
naturally fine sense of justice suffered me
to call and remonstrate the day after she left my
house; although we are now faster friends than
ever, how can I expect her ladyship to visit
me again, after the reiterated insults to which she
was exposed on the last occasion of her esteemed
presence under my roof? How can I ask my
niece—a young person who has been most
carefully brought up—to come and stay with me,
when I know that she will be taken into the
major's closest domestic confidence on the first
morning of her arrival, whether she likes it or
not?

There is something absolutely dreadful in
reflecting on the daily recurrence of this entirely
new species of nuisance, and on the utter
hopelessness of finding any remedy against it. The
law of the land contains no provision against the
habitual management of a wife and family in a
front garden. Private remonstrance addressed
to a man so densely impenetrable to a sense of
propriety as the major, would only expose me
to ridicule, and perhaps to insult. I can't leave
my house, for it exactly suits me, and I have
bought it. The major can't leave his house, for
it exactly suits him, and he has bought it. There
is actually no remedy possible, but the forcible
removal of my military neighbour from his