tioned match! A huge black tea-pot, which evidently had seen service, had been adroitly supplied with a tin spout and a brass coverbrown sugar (well named moist) melted in a broken bason, and a milk-jug, which had lost its nose in the Fitzcribbs' service, was not on that account ungratefully dismissed. A piece of salt-butter, wrapped in its original paper, lay on the broken plate-two knives stuck in it, and crumbs and fragments of bread were scattered around; but, in the midst of all, was a small plate of toast, very nicely made by Sappho for poor Benoni-the best bread and the freshest butter had been expended on the little invalid's toast, and a fine china cup, with his name in gold letters, had been bought for him by his fond father, who himself drank indifferently out of any of the motley group spread over the table.

The extreme discomfort of the domestic arrangements we have described were not the result of poverty. There are few ménages where order cannot give some appearance of comfort, and Fitzcribb's earnings (consider

able as his extreme industry made them) might, judiciously expended, have secured a cheerful and agreeable home. But what avail means without management? Mrs. Fitzcribb―kind, good, and devoted, was, alas! a blue-a regular blue-the worst kind of blue—a woman with the most persevering wish to shine as a literary character, but without genius, and deficient even in a good ear for poetry-in short, a mere poetaster!

With a little correction from Fitzcribb, her verses did to fill corners of country papers, and the smallest and cheapest lady's museums, mirrors, &c. Fitzcribb never discouraged a pursuit which was a real source of delight to one, who for him had sacrificed so many others; but he did sometimes feel that a literary man ought not to have a literary wife. While she wrote "Odes to the Moon," she more than once nearly set the house on fire. Her poems on "Domestic Happiness" prevented her securing him any domestic comfort. Her drama on 'Goody Two Shoes" caused her own children to go barefoot, and Fitzcribb to botch (as he

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could) his own stockings; and once she was so much engrossed by a sonnet to "A Sleeping Infant," that her own child awoke, and, before she saw him move, overturned his cradle.

In a corner of the room, seated on a pile of huge old folios, sate Corinna Fitzcribb, a beautiful girl of fifteen, who was plaiting her hair before a small glass, supported by a large book, and wreathing in the long and priceless tresses of purest gold some tawdry tableflowers which she had bought for a few pence, and which were not worth even that small sum. She was dressing for a juvenile literary soirée at a Mrs. Mac Dactyl's, in the next street. She had already distinguished herself by some occasional verses in the humblest of periodicals; and, spite of the table-flowers, and a gaudy, ill-made, second-hand blue gauze dress, she looked, as she sate on the dusty old folios, a fair young muse fresh from Parnassus.

Such was the distribution of all the Fitzcribb party, when Grunter, full of his work, hurried up to Fitzcribb. Mrs. Fitzcribb, as we have said, a regular blue, was of course a

slattern; to bestow on her person the time necessary to be always neat and presentable, would to her have seemed a sort of treason to She was still, at about seven-and

the muses. thirty, a strikingly beautiful woman; but her charms were never set forth by dress, except on very particular occasions, when she adopted some romantic costume-a muse, a priestess, a sybil, a sultana, a Mary Stuart, or a Ninon.

On the present occasion, her beautiful and redundant hair, rough and neglected, was, in front, confined in fragments of paper, and behind twisted and fastened up by an old, broken comb. An ink-stained wrapper loosely enveloped a form which might have been a very fine one the same disfiguring yet immortalising fluid had stained her hands. Her shoes were down at heel, and her stockings proved that the needle would have been "mightier than the pen."

In spite of all these disadvantages of toilet, there was an aristocratic dignity in her manner of receiving Grunter. She made no apology; for she considered, and justly, that

the apology ought to come from the intruder. She calmly opened the door of a book-closet, and said, "Mr. Fitzcribb is as you see at his toilet; if you will step into that small room for a few minutes, he will be ready to receive you. You will find yourself, Mr. Grunter," she added, with a graceful smile and bow, "among the kindred spirits who have preceded you in the path of fame."

So saying, with the air of a queen she waived Grunter into the closet, he murmuring apologies, excuses, and thanks the while, in which the words "my work," "my last chapter," "a new idea," and "dear Fitzcribb," were often heard. The closet was so full of his betters, he scarcely found room to turn. Although the door was closed upon him, a loud crash was heard; the unwieldy creature had knocked down Rollin and Racine; but, in return, Hume and Smollet, covered with dust, fell upon him. He uttered a screech, but no one found it convenient to heed it; so he sat down on his fallen foes, and readjusted his wig. He was scarcely gone, when, with a cele