highly-decorated pen-wipers, which in the first
instant I took to be tributes of affection at
the hands of the young ladies to my wife ;
but which I afterwards discovered were to
be purchased from seven shillings and
sixpence a-piece and upwards, for the benefit
of a native congregation in the Tonga
Island.

What was wanting, indeed, in our temporal
comforts at Zion Cottage was well made up
to us in attentions to our moral welfare.
Twenty-five copies of Good Resolutions, or
the Broken Pipe, were presented to me by
Miss Miriam alone, on the occasion of a
smell of tobacco being apparent in my
dressing-room. We received the Infidel's
Warning in return for our notice to quit, and
were pointed out to Jemima Ann during the
last few days by the Reverend Benjamin as
having been typified, in a most satisfactory,
though not in a pleasing manner, several
thousand years ago.

Besides these awful specimens of the genus
lodging-letter, we have experienced nearly
a score of others : each, I believe, enough to
have driven a philosopher (regardless of mere
appearances) to live on wheels, or under
canvas, rather than in furnished apartments.
Let it suffice, however, to paint one more
likeness, the original of which is unhappily
close to my hand. I allude to Mrs. Peachbloom
at whose lodgings, number eleven,
Garden of Eden Terrace, Saint Heliers, Jersey,
we now are. She is a widow lady of that
extreme delicacy and invalidism, that when
the wind is in the north she retires to her
couch ; and when a door bangs she has a
series of hysterical fits. At our first arrival
she seemed pleased enough to see us ; but on
the second day (on which we went out to
dinner) she thought we should be too much
for her. "My health is such, you see,
madam," she told my wife, "as to make all
exertion dangerous, and standing in the front
of a fire perfect madness ; you must, at all
events, dine early, and require as little of
everything as possible."

During that same night we were awakened
by screams, which we supposed to proceed
from Mrs. P.'s hysteria, but turned out to be
from the maid, whom she was beating with a
gravy-ladle with much enthusiasm and
vigour. In a voice, too, singularly different
from her accustomed whisper, she was
responding to her threats of departure, that she
might go whenever she liked, but it would be
without a character. One day she gave us
notice to leave, because she could not bear to
see us any longer occupying the very rooms
which had once been Lord and Lady
Millefleurs, the best and kindest friend she
had ever had ; she thought she could have
borne it, she said in apology, but her feelings
were stronger than she had reckoned upon.
It appeared afterwards that she had in reality
heard news of a more eligible tenant from
the West Indies, which did not turn out to
be true; but in reply to our inquiries a few
days after, as to why Lodgings was again in
her window, she said that she had managed
to conquer her feelings once more, and that
we might still remain. After a week of
tranquillity, she again informed us that the
Earl of Millefleurs had written to her the
most friendly of letters, advising her to let
the house for a term of years. I was
disturbed, indeed, on the ensuing morning by
the following dialogue between her and a
bill-sticker at the front door. He had just
been putting up House to Let over the
porch :

"So you have done it, Williams, have
you ?" whimpered Mrs. Peachbloom.

"Done what, marm ? I don't know what
you mean ?"

"Put up the — the — the notice, Williams—
put it up in the sight of the world."

"Well you told me, marm, didn't you?
It's easy taken down else, and no trouble."

"Ah, you don't understand me, Williams
—you don't sympathise with me — and,
indeed, how should you? For we must all
come to this, or something of the sort, at
last. This house to let unfurnished. Well,
well, God bless you, Williams! — God bless
you!"

She affirms, indeed, that with the exception
of his Lordship, nobody does understand her;
nothing under a member of the aristocracy
can do this; and we are not that, nor (as she
is pleased to add, we hear through Jemima
Ann) anything of the sort. There will be
an auction, therefore, in the house to-morrow,
and we must go. "All is to be sold," she
says, "even to the very piano"— which I do
not think will come to pass, for want of a
buyer, as it has no keys to speak of, and half
the wires have snapped;—" singular, is it
not, that not even her piano is to be saved—
bought-in, she believes they call it — but all
is to be sold ?"

Yesterday, however, upon some people
calling to see the house in consequence of the
placard, she took it down before their very
eyes, having mounted upon a ladder for that
purpose; declared that it was all a mistake,
and that they could not so much as look at
the apartments, occupied, as they had so
lately been, by Lord and Lady Millefleurs.
So there is to be no auction, and we are not
To Let after all.

Except, however, that we think it right to
be unpleasantly careful in locking our own
and the nursery doors at night, I think we
like this poor out-of-her-mind little Peachbloom
as well as any; but Jemima Ann and
the maid have lost all patience with her
tantrums, and are eagerly desirous ("character
or no character," says the latter) to give
her a precious good shaking before they have
done with her. I confess, if it could be
effected without legal risk, I should very
much like to see them putting that design
into execution.