on their celebrated Tient-Tout, which
already, as its name implies, held everything.
Divided, say the Brothers, into five compartments,
thus: a place for your dress-boots,
slippers, and gibus. A collar-cell. A——"

"Psha!" said Bob; "I mean the regular
hermit machine, plain, grave, capacious,
waterproof,  adapted, in short, to its sober purposes,
and the useful and innocent pursuits of the
contented wearer."

"Hallo! Are you going to turn solitary?" I
asked, with considerable surprise.

"Harry," said Bob, "I——Stop. Take
a sweep round here. It's quieter. I have
arrived at a very extraordinary determination.
Although not recent, it is in a manner
associated with an incident that occurred under
your eyes not ten minutes ago. We met a
low-bodied light-green phaeton, drawn by a
pair of nice free-stepping things, silver harness,
the whole conducted by a lady in a mauve
bonnet, carrying on her whip-shaft a delicate
blue toadstool."

"I remember."

"As she shot past, and our eyes met, the
toadstool sank between us. Noticing this, the
spirit of mischief prompted you to remark, with
a pretence of ignorance that would have been
absurd if it were not malignant, 'I thought
you knew Grace Kersmere—that is, Lady Grace
Tattershore.' 'Knew her!' I responded, using
my chest-notes. There I stopped."

"All this I accept as history. Proceed."

"/," resumed Mr. Lynn, after a deglutition,
as if he had successfully bolted a small apple,
"I, sir, was the tenth man jilted by that lady.
She was, as you are aware, an heiress,
independent of her parents; a circumstance
which does not, in practice, fortify the authority
of those parties. Grace, in fact, was
accustomed to do pretty much as she pleased.
Engagements were her monomania. To such a
degree did she indulge the predilection for
betrothment, that, at the period when I found
an explanation absolutely necessary, Miss
Kersmere was regularly affianced to no less than
three individuals, irrespective of a conditional
understanding with a cousin in New Zealand,
and an extensive range of general flirtation at
home!"

"Did she propose to marry the three?"

"I cannot say," replied Bob, calmly.
"Perhaps the difficulties of a threefold engagement
might have been enough for her. Genius,
however, will do a great deal. Accident—
treachery, she called it—alone brought matters
to a crisis. We three unconscious rivals,
happening to be all in town at the same time, it
became expedient to appoint us our respective
beats, morning, afternoon, evening. I was
myself on afternoon, or croquet duty, when,
by the merest chance, happening to drop in in
the morning man's time, I became aware that
she was affianced—in addition to myself and
Charley Sartorius—to Sir Talbot Tattershore
—whom, in the perplexity arising from this
unlucky clash, she, unintentionally, married.
You heard of the singular, not to say
preternatural incident, that attended the ceremony?"

"No, I did not. What was it?"

"They were married, by the united efforts of
several of the clergy, at St. Winifred's the
Less. Just before the appointed hour, a
gentleman, not, perhaps, strictly handsome, but of
highly prepossessing aspect and demeanour,
still more improved by a touch of sadness,
accosted the pew-opener with a request for a
seat, at a convenient distance from the altar."

"Say frankly it was yourself."

"Ha! Well guessed,'" said Bob; "but you'll
hardly foresee what follows. The pew-opener,
after a moment's irresolution, arising perhaps
from her knowledge of Miss Kersmere's history,
and a fear that I might attend for the purpose
of forbidding the banns—ended by placing me
in a commodious pew, but slightly removed
from the interesting scene. Scarcely was I
seated, when I noticed a second gentleman,
evidently preferring a similar request. He, likewise,
wore a subdued and mournful air, and the
vergeress—probably esteeming us fit companions
—led the way to my pew, and introduced
into it Jacob Protheroe—the man she was
engaged to at Naples! Well, sir, we had
barely exchanged nods, when, by Jove! our
party was augmented by the entrance of Lord
Edward Snitcher, and his long cousin, Tom
Preedy, who fought about her at Bruges, and
were both pinked—and jilted. Them followed
little Contrebasso, the music-master, to whom
it was said Miss had given a written contract
of marriage. Presently, at the end of the
pew, I became aware of the long visage of old
Witherspin, of the Blues; and, finally, to crown
all, the indefatigable female hitched into the
pew a tall ungainly youth, with large ears,
blushing to their very tips, whom Protheroe, in
a choked whisper, pronounced to be young
Quentery, the son of one of Kersmere's
Shropshire tenants, whose bucolic heart Miss
Kersmere had broken, as the Laureate hath it,
'for pastime, ere she went to town.' There,
sir, we sat—the pew-opener standing sentry
over us, with a half-pitying, half-disdainful air
—as if we had been convicts, or a batch of
doubtful sheep in a separate pen. I have often
wondered whether the placing us all together in
that conspicuous position, when there were
scores of pews vacant, was the jade's joke or not!
Escape was out of the question, for hardly
had young Quentery's left ear shown symptoms
of regaining its natural hue, when its relapse
into the deepest crimson announced the approach
of the wedding-party. Grace leaned upon her
father's arm, looking radiant as the day, and
—(shameless flirt and jilt!) the impersonation
of artless innocence. Whether she
regarded our presence as a compliment or otherwise,
it was impossible to say. I think I know
which party looked most foolish. I am sure I
know which felt most embarrassed. As Tattershore
led her from the altar, she suddenly stopped,
faced round, surveyed us with one slow, sweeping
glance of scorn, dropped a stately curtsey,