love-locks, the perdition of jewellery! The
dismal anecdotes they will have to endure
of errant housemaids who, disregarding the
advice of their pastors and friends—the
housekeepers—fell into evil ways, and were
afterwards seen walking in the Park on
Sunday, with fourteen flounces one above the
other, and leaning on the arms of Life Guardsmen.
All this will be, as it has been before,
when Mrs. Blundy is "suited."

To be housekeeper to a duchess is the
culminating point of every Mrs. Blundy's
ambition. To dine with the groom of the
chambers, and my lord duke's steward—to
have her own still-room footman behind her
own still-room chair—to hear the latest Court
news from her grace's lady's maid, or from
Monsieur Anatole, the hair-dresser, invited in
to partake of a glass of particular Madeira.
These, with the comfortable perspective of a
retiring pension, or of a stately superannuation
at his grace's great show-house in
Hampshire; with rich fees for showing Claudes
and Petitots, Sèvres porcelain and Gobelin
tapestry to visitors. Any duchess, therefore,
who may want such a person, will know
where to apply.

AS HOUSEKEEPER to a Single or Invalid
Gentleman, a Single Person of experience. Can be
highly recommended.—Address, Alpha, at Mr. Mutts, 72,
Kingsgate Street, Holborn.

Attached relatives and friends of Sir Dian
Lunes, Bart. —who, beyond occasional aberrations
and delusions respecting his head being
a beehive and himself being heir to the throne
of Great Britain, is a harmless, helpless,
paralytic, bed-ridden old gentleman enough
—may be safely assured that Alpha is
the housekeeper for him—Alpha, otherwise
represented by Miss Rudd.

Mr. Mutts, trunk-maker, of Kingsgate
Street, Holborn, knows Miss Rudd. Does he
not? Ugh! Who but a meek, quiet, little
widowed trunk-maker, with three daughters
(grown up, and all inclined to redness at the
nose), would have known that terrible female
half as long as he has done. She lodges with
him in the frequent intervals between her
situations. " Hang her, she do," says Mutts
to himself as he is busy at work. And, as lie
says it, he gives a nail which he fancies has a
Ruddish appearance such an exasperated rap,
that Grapp, his apprentice, begins rapping at
his nails, in professional emulation, harder
than ever; and the two between them
engender such a storm of raps, that Mr.
Ferret, the surly attorney opposite, sends
across with his compliments, and really he
shall be obliged to indict Mr. Mutts for a
nuisance—  indeed he shall.

Miss Rudd—she is tall, lank, and bony!
She has some jet ornaments in heavy links
about her neck; but, resembling the fetters
over the gate of the Old Bailey, they have
not a decorative effect. She wears a faded
black merino dress, the reflections from which
are red with rust. Her feet are long and
narrow, like canoes. Her hands, when she
has those hideous black mittens on, always
remind me of unboiled lobsters.

When Judith Jael Mutts, aged twenty-three,
tells her father that Miss Rudd—having
left Mrs. Major Morbuss's family, in
consequence of the levity of Miss Corpus, that
lady's niece is,—pending her acceptance of
another engagement, coming to stay a week
in Kingsgate Street, the poor man breaks out
into a cold perspiration—yet his daughter
Judith always adds, " Really Miss Rudd is
such a superior person, and has so strict a
sense of her moral mission, that we should
all be benefitted" (a glance at Mutts over his
Sunday newspaper) " by her stay." Mutts
knows that it is all over with this same
newspaper during Miss Rudd's stay; which,
though announced as to be only of a week's
duration, he knows, from sad experience,
will very probably be indefinitely protracted.
Miss Rudd's moral mission ordinarily involves
an unusual tartness of temper in Mr. Mutts's
three amiable daughters; it makes—on the
general question of theology at meal times
and extra exposure to being "worretted"—
Grapp, the apprentice's life a temporary
burden to him. There is no rest for Mr. Mutts
while the single gentleman's housekeeper is
good enough to lodge with him. He is in
daily perturbation lest Miss Rudd should
take his state of widowerhood as a state of
sin; and, willing or not willing, marry him,
severely. With what alacrity he carries the
notification of Miss Rudd's wishes to Printing
House Square! How devoutly he hopes that
the advertisement will be speedily answered!

Not only to Sir Dian Lunes, but to
Thomas Tallboys, Esq. (known when in
the House from his taciturnity as "Mum"
Tallboys), Miss Rudd would be a most eligible
retainer. That stiff, stern, melancholy, silent
man would find a treasure in her. Trestles,
the footman, who is more than half brother
to a mute, would have a grim and silent
respect for her. Her lank canoe-like shoes
would go noiselessly about the stairs; into
Mr. Tallboys' ghastly dining-room, where
there is a Turkey carpet, of which the faded
colours seem to have sunk through the floor,
like spectres; into the study, where there
are great book-cases filled with vellum bound
volumes, which seem to have turned pale
with fright at the loneliness of their habitation,
a neat view of the Street of Tombs at
Pompeii, and a model of an ancient
sarcophagus; where every morning she would find
Mr. Tallboys in a dressing-gown like a
tartan winding-sheet, with a bony paper-knife
cutting the pages of the Registrar-General's
returns, which he will have sent to
him weekly: into the silent kitchen, where
an imposing and gleaming batterie de cuisine
(never used but twice a year) blinks lazily
at the preparations for his daily chop: into
the mournful housekeeper's room, garnished
with unused sweets and condiments; into