wordy warfare, a species of contention in which they so eminently excel, requires an effort of courage by no means of an ordinary nature. Besides, my mother was a first-rate disputant, a very Hercules in controversy, whilst each of my sisters stood ready, like Iolas with the hot iron in his hand, to cauterize the arguments of the adversary, the Hydra's heads, which Mr. Doveton was demolishing.

"I declare to God," said my father, "that I will never again live in a street. It's no use trying to persuade me: I would as

soon live in a prison;" and Mr. Doveton assumed an air of determination which did not particularly become him, but which was not without its effect.

"But we might live nearer the town, without living in a street," replied my mother, and this truism was so obvious to the understandings of my two sisters, that they both of them uttered simultaneously the three monosyllables, "So we might."

What followed I do not precisely remember. Both parties were somewhat contumacious. My mother said there was no "neighbourhood," the meaning of which assertion my father did not at first comprehend. My elder sister explained, and was astonished when my father observed, that what they looked upon as an objection, he regarded as a recommendation. The town of **

1

which in these volumes shall be known by the name of Merry-vale, was just three miles distant from the plot of ground on which we were standing. My mother thought three miles a distance almost interminable; she had never walked so far in her life; neither had my sisters' pedestrian excursions, more than once or twice, been further extended; but my father, accustomed every day to walk backward and forward between the neighbourhood of Regent's Park and the City, thought nothing of the distance; besides, as he pertinently remarked, exercise is a fine thing for the health, and the walk every day would do them good.

"This Merry-vale appears to me a poor place enough," said my mother.

"Horrid!" cried my sister Laura, "there is not a shop in the place.”

"It seems to be full of shops," said my father, drily," and the market is very well supplied."

"I mean milliners' shops," replied Laura, who delighted in a little finery, and fancied herself a beauty, which she was not.

"Nor a library worth subscribing to," said Fanny, who was a great reader of trash, which she called "polite literature," a name to which it was by no means entitled.

Just at this moment the rattling of carriagewheels was heard, and in less than a minute a

smart equipage, with three bay horses and a grey, dashed by at a tremendous pace, exciting a cloud of dust, which was not very readily dissipated. Two young gentlemen sate upon the box, one of whom acted as coachman, with all the ease of a practised whip: just as he passed our group, he was, in the language of the road, "springing them," that is to say, letting his horses gallop freely down hill, so that the impetus of the rapid descent might impel them partially up the eminence in advance of them. They were both of them dressed with more attention to eccentricity than to elegance, and I particularly remember that the coachman wore a white hat, with an immoderate brim, and a pair of green spectacles, or goggles.

"There goes the mail!" said my father, wiping the dust out of his eyes as he spoke.

This exclamation was not, it must be acknowledged, indicative of very great sagacity. My sisters smiled,' and my mother laughed. "The mail!" they all three cried together.

"The Mail!-and why not?" asked my fa

ther.

"Because," replied Mrs. Doveton sarcastically, -"because, my dear, the mail likes best to keep to the high road, and seldom indulges in a digression."

"Besides," added my sister Laura, asserting

that which was not indeed so self-evident a truism as her mother's-"young gentlemen, in white hats, are not in the habit of driving stages."

"I am not so sure of that," said my father. "But your mother is quite right.”

The three ladies then began to wonder who the gentlemen, on the coach-box, could be-"young noblemen, or baronets' sons, at least." My mother was beginning to think, that what she had said about "no neighbourhood," was not quite so correct, after all. A countryman passed by, and my mother stopped him, that he might solve her doubts, upon a point of such immediate importance.

"I don't see that it matters," said my father.

But my mother did, and had my father known all, he would have thought so too; for already did his female adversaries begin to slacken in their opposition to his wishes relating to the dwellinghouse before us.

The "carriage and four," was the property of Sir Willoughby Euston, Bart.; and the young gentlemen on the box were his sons.

Moreover, my mother ascertained that Sir Willoughby's seat, Fox Hall, was only one mile distant from Meadow-bank, by which name its proprietor had distinguished the house, which my father was so ambitious of tenanting.

I will not take upon me positively to state that

this circumstance of the carriage-and-four, was the sole cause of my mother's withholding her opposition to the will of my father, respecting the house, but I apprehend that a series of deductions, very skilfully drawn therefrom, had the effect of eliciting her acquiescence. There was one great person in the neighbourhood; and, there being one, it was probable that there were others, as great people were gregarious by nature. It was evident, therefore, that there was "a neighbourhood;" and it was equally plain, that there must be shops good shops in Merry-vale-for where-、 ever there were rich people, there were sure to be good shops and as rich people were idle people, and idle people could not do better than read novels all day, there must have been a good library in Merry-vale; and for similar reasons a good milliner; and thus all these three amiable logicians were satisfied, and my father became the tenant of Meadow-bank.