a new hat herself, the day I went to church
with her to give her away; for she said she
was determined that her dear old growling
father should look respectable. The truth is,
after I had been domiciled at the Chase,
by the express wish of the poor Cottage
upstairs, the foraging cap came back, and
Harry's hat (which had been away too long)
came back also, and Katie's feathers moved
and shook, and drooped and fluttered, and
tossed and trembled; and—well! and I
suppose it was all right! I only know I brought
it about; it was a real feast, as the Italians
say, that wedding with a pretty, pretty, bride;
but I hate weddings, and will never go to
another—no, not even to Minnie's. The
foraging cap, you may suppose, did not go to
church, but a bran new hat did (I hate bran
new hats— mine was bran new too— they shine
so) and the cap drove off afterwards, with as
many bright hopes in it as ever filled a cap of
any description, old, middle-aged, or new;
before or since.

I went home again, to the Den, that very
day. Home, did I say? Well; Katie
allowed me to live there, and did not ask
much rent, and I don't know who would be
more likely to watch over the little wife's
interests than her agent, Growler, while she
was marching over the country from quarter
to quarter.

A year and a half has passed since then,
and times have changed with my Mahogany
Friend, who was obstinately silent, and looked
very blank, through all that term. William's
hat has come back —not the old hat, but one
of foreign manufacture—and Mrs. William's
hat, (made for more sun than she will get here),
has come along with it, and three or four
little, outlandish, far-away, over-the-sea sort
of head-dresses, for which I, who have never
crossed the Line, or been farther south than
Palermo, can find no name, cluster around
them; and, better than all, for all would be
incomplete without them, my Katie's black
plume and the foraging cap have come back,
and hang up with the rest—as the country-people
say, "quite natural." What the puffy
little cream-coloured hood, (much too small I
should have thought for anything living), that
hangs there too, may mean, or what tiny
animal may be in the habit of wearing it, I
don't know—but, I have no doubt Katie
knows—and indeed she says I'm its godfather.
The faded Cottage is bleached, and has a new
ribbon, and comes out quite fresh; and there's
a dreadfully suspicious young hat near Minnie's
bonnet. In a word, my Mahogany Friend is
perfectly radiant, and stood, but yesterday,
with all his five-and-twenty arms a-kimbo, and
all his hats cocked, looking at me with the
jolliest aspect I ever observed in him.

"You consider," I began, addressing him
familiarly, and presuming on our friendship—

"To make short work with you, Mr. Mum,"
he replied, " I consider my history finished,
and I never mean to say any more."

My opinion is, that he never will, and that
he ought to blush French polish for having
said so much, about so little.

A SUBURBAN CONNEMARA.

I WAS born and bred in Manchester. My
earliest impression—which has hardly left
me yet—that all rich men are mill-owners,
and all poor men and women merely
spinners. I am proud of being a Manchester
man; for there is not a town more orderly
or better lighted and paved, or (till lately)
better swept, in England. Till I was
four-and-twenty I had never been out of my
native town. Early and late I toiled in
my father's counting-house, without ever
thinking of stirring out of it, or taking
a holiday; for my father used to say, that
God gave man one day out of every seven
for rest, and He knew what was enough for
him. I used to hear of London at that time,
and to fancy that Watling Street was a kind
of High Street to the Metropolis; for all our
correspondents dated from Watling Street.
When the railway opened, there came a great
change in this respect. I made my first
journey to London; and finding that I
knocked off a good deal of business by the
transaction, I began to run up to town nearly
every week, which I have continued to do
ever since.

Thus, though I am a Manchester man, I
know the City as well as any Londoner. I
know every court and alley of it, and can
make short cuts, and find the nearest way
from any one part of that great labyrinth to
another. I confess I am not so well acquainted
with the suburbs. I had always a favourable
impression of the northern side of London,
from the pretty villas and cottages which I
had remarked on each side of the line, on
coming up by the North-Western Railway.
Therefore, having lately found it advisable to
transfer my business altogether to Watling
Street, City, I resolved to seek in that quarter
for a residence for myself and family. Another
reason induced me to select that spot. My
goods are coming up continually by the North
Western Railway; and having some commissions
in the West Riding, who send up parcels
by the Great Northern line, I wished to be
somewhere between Battle Bridge and Euston
Square: in order, occasionally, to give an eye
to my consignments at both stations. With
this purpose I procured a new map, on a
large scale, in order to see all the Victoria
Crescents and Albert Terraces thereabouts.

I drew out my pocket-compasses, measured
the line, reduced it one half; and, on finding
the unknown locality, brought one point of
the dividor's plumb upon a spot which I at
once read off from the map as "Agar Town."
Looking more minutely, I observed that the
particular point of the district indicated, was
"Salisbury Crescent." I could not repress
an exclamation of satisfaction, as Oxford and