"No, my dear, that is the King's Yerb -woman and her six maids of honour: are not they, Sir?" said the lady, addressing herself to Mr. Wily.-- "As far as any thing I know to the contrary, Ma'am," was the reply.
"My goodness!" exclaimed Mrs. Dory, "wonders and wiseacres will never cease! if there ben't the two Aldermen W's marching before the King! And see, see, Jackey! there's your old acquaintance, the Alderman of Portsoken Ward, with all his blushing honours flushing in his face!"

Darting her indignant glances on the offending parson-- "Mr. Trewanion ," said she, "I beg, sir, you vont go to defer nobody to me; you ought to have more purliteness , sir, than to insinivate that a lady like me doesn't know how to distinguish vether a boy is like his father or not; and let me tell you, sir."
"My dear madam, how entirely have you misunderstood me! I protest, that in the allusion you condescend to notice, I was merely doing justice to that talent for discrimination which all must allow to be Mrs. Gruby's characteristic, and of which I will venture to assert, she never gave more convincing proof than in her so readily detecting a resemblance which I from my heart believe, without any intentional disrespect to the company, not one person in the room possesses equal penetration to discover."
"None of your insinuendoes , Mr. Trewanion —none of your insinuendoes , sir, if you please; I understand you vell enough; I knows ven people are jeering, sir, and I vould have you to know that there is nothing I despise so much as your insinuendoes and your double saint andrews , sir, that says von thing and means another."
[some narrative omitted]
"Stones indeed! a likely matter truly!" exclaimed Mrs. Gruby, who had neither forgotten nor forgiven what she styled the parson's imperance ; " vell , vould any body but a ninkum go to suppose the old gentleman vould take the trouble to lock up stones? No, no, sir, take my vord for it, Mr. Baldwin knew better than that. I dares to say them boxes are all full of money, and guineas, and bank-notes, and sich like walliables , and not full of stones indeed!"

Mrs. Gruby, who how entered the room, saved him the necessity of making any. This lady, in whose raised complexion and agitated manner evident traces of strong emotion might be perceived, sailed most majestically up to the lady of the house, who rose to receive her, and began a hurried apology for having made it so late, accounting for her delay by saying, that, after nearly reaching the door, she had been obligated to go back, and dress herself all over again-- "For, do you know, ma'am ," continued she, "just as I was a-stepping over the gutter, and thinking of nothing at all, a great overgrown feller run right against me, and gave me such a shove that I lost my hequibylerium , and down tumbles me on my knees in the dirt." The whole sympathy of the room was at once in requisition, and a circle was immediately formed round the unfortunate matron, eager to hear a more detailed account of this disastrous adventure; captain Ironside, of the regiment then quartered in the town, declaring, with an oath, that the rascal ought to be crucified, who had dared to commit so gross a misdemeanour--an assertion which was echoed by his friend lieutenant Watkinson, who, with much gravity in his face, congratulated her on her escaping without personal injury, and hoped she had succeeded in finding again the article she had so unluckily lost in her fall.
"Lost! Lord louee , sir! I lost nothing, thank ye ; though, to be sure, I was very near having von of my shoes slipping off."
"I beg your pardon, madam, and rejoice that I was mistaken. I thought I understood you that you had lost an heguy --something which, from the concern with which you mentioned it, I feared had been an article of value." "Oh, my hequibylerium ! vy , so I did, or how should I have tumbled down, you know ?"
"It was only a walking-stick then, I presume, madam?"
"A valking -stick indeed!" and as she said this, her eyes turned full upon her hypocritical commiserator, to see if it were possible he could be laughing at her; the unruffled solemnity, however, of Watkinson's well-tutored features defied her scrutiny-- "a valking -stick!--no, sir, I never use no valking -sticks; if I had had von , I should have laid it across the feller 's back pretty soundly, I can tell you that."
"He would have come off but too cheaply with so slight a punishment, madam," rejoined Ironside; "annihilation is the least he ought to expect; and I should glory in the office of inflicting the chastisement upon him which he so well merits."
"No, sir--no, I thank ye ; though, I must say, your hoffer is wastly civil. But you gentlemen of the harmy are so polite!--But I have a son, sir, a hofficer in the harmy --Mr. Hoctavius Gruby, a hofficer in the loco , sir--and he'll punish enough, I warrant him, if I can find him out; and I am sure I shall know him again, for he had a vite hat on, and a very predominant nose."

"Well," answered the dame, "I will go and speak to my goodma n. But we must first know who you be , and of what party you be , before we admits vagrant soldiers into our house . Lord bless me! For aught we knows you may be some of Cromwell's rebels."

" Hark ye , my sweet," said the woman; "whether I have the cavalier, and you take the roundhead, or whether you take the cavalier and I have the roundhead, provided that, together with their clothes, the gentlemen do not also change persons, we cannot fail of being mutually contented -- at least I can answer for myself. -- This," taking me by the arm, "is a right true cavalier. -- Lord bless him! But as for that poor roundhead there -- he is so mammocked !"

Protruding a lamp in our face, the closer to examine the stragglers, this Presbyterian (for such his appearance bespoke him), with a shrill voice, and in the cant of the day, then said – "If ye be vipers of the court, approach not this dwelling ; but if ye be of the elect , who seek the Lord, ye are welcome to tarry in the house of the righteous -- yea , we will pour oil and wine into your wounds."
How to reconcile these words, and the whole appearance of this grotesque figure, with the recent expression of the woman, I felt quite at a loss, and was meditating a reply which might smooth, if possible, the rugged way, that seemed to lie between my wants and the inclination of this arch hypocrite, to supply them, when the woman hurried down stairs after her husband, and, out of breath, both with the haste she had made, and the petulance of her humour, exclaimed -- " Mercy upon me , husband! will you never learn a little forbearance and moderation? Suppose now these soldiers should be royalists, what a pretty plight we should be in truly! Well, for my part, the good Samaritan shall always be my model. Besides, how do you know but they may take offence, and cut your throat and mine? Believe me, if you are in such a hurry to go to Heaven, I am not equally so. Give me the light, I say."
At these words, she snatched the lamp out of her husband's hand, hunched him aside, and addressing us, said -- "Gentlemen, for such your appearance bespeaks you, I asks no questions as to your principles."

Greatly dismayed at the ill success of my search, I was despondently reclining on an orosmane in the corner of one of the lesser rooms, revolving in my mind this whimsically provoking incident, when a mask, in the character of an African slave, squeezing himself upon the orosmane, took his seat close to me. There being scarcely room for two persons, on account of the posture in which I was reclined, his intrusion appeared rather unmannered. However, withdrawing a little on one side, I made way for him. Using the accent of blacks, he now entered into conversation with me; and presently, to my surprise, asked if I had succeeded in meeting with the Chinese, of whom, he said, I and all the company, more or less, seemed in search.
" Pray what did the poor Mandarin do to make Lord N. and the King so angry?" asked the talkative mask.
I said that he had obtruded himself most impudently into the royal presence.
"Had he done nothing else?" said my swarthy neighbour, adding -- "Why, at Anamabou, we visit our good king Onoonoonoonoonoonoonomacou whenever we please. But did not the Chinese offend you personally?"
I remained silent.
" Ah! Massa, Massa !" he added, motioning significantly with his finger, " you no know me -- but I know you."

Mrs. Belmont was proud of having a titled lady her guest. "Absolutely, my dear," she said, when writing to Lady Wilmot, "her ladyship is an inmate of our house, and is as quiet and easy as if it was yourself; who certainly are a lady too, but your husband is no lord, as her's was' and she is to have another lord for her husband, and is, besides, the mother of a lord; but as I was saying, she is quiet and easy but not so her woman, who is as troublesome a wench as ever entered a house. "Oh! mem ," said she to me, on their first coming, " I always has a fire in my room, and I'se cannot bear the windor open; as I have the rheumatis in my harm , and the hair always brings it on ." Thus she goes on, like all folks on the other side of the water, clipping the king's English; and then she has such blarney to her lady -- her lady the countess that is to be. "

Mrs. Belmont was proud of having a titled lady her guest. "Absolutely, my dear," she said, when writing to Lady Wilmot, "her ladyship is an inmate of our house, and is as quiet and easy as if it was yourself; who certainly are a lady too, but your husband is no lord, as her's was' and she is to have another lord for her husband, and is, besides, the mother of a lord; but as I was saying, she is quiet and easy but not so her woman, who is as troublesome a wench as ever entered a house. "Oh! mem ," said she to me, on their first coming, " I always has a fire in my room, and I'se cannot bear the windor open; as I have the rheumatis in my harm , and the hair always brings it on ." Thus she goes on, like all folks on the other side of the water, clipping the king's English; and then she has such blarney to her lady -- her lady the countess that is to be. "

"Oh, my dear Miss Sybella! you must be deceived -- be assured her ladyship would not listen to a declaration of love from him!" said Mrs. Belmont, pale with anger; yet afraid of further irritating Sybella. "He dared not offend her delicacy with such talk; and no disparagement to you, Miss Sybella, but you know your lugs are not quite right ; and --"
" My what! ma'am -- lugs , do you say? I suppose that is one of your Irish expressions. "
" Well , miss; in plain English I mean to say , that as your ears are bothered , my Bobby might have been talking of you; and you, knowing listeners never hear good of themselves, set it all down to the count of her ladyship."