ceiling. It is but a short flight for fancy to reach the upper story. The trap is bolted in the floor; there is a ladder standing beside it; here are chairs, a bureau, a table, with an extinguished candle, and the moonlight falls in a narrow strip across the features of Captain Belgrave, fast asleep, and beside him a Bible, and an enormous horse-pistol, loaded.
Nowhere but in the household of some old bachelor could such discipline exist as in the Oakery. At night the Captain is the first to retire; Miss Augusta follows with a pair of candlesticks and candles; then metaphysical Adolphus with his mind in painful state of fermentation; then Hannah, the help, with a small brass candlestick; then Jim, the stable-boy, who usually waits until the company is on the top-stair, when he makes a false start, breaks, pulls himself up, and gets into a square trot just in time to save being distanced at the landing. Adolphus and Jim are not trusted with candles. Miss Augusta is rigorous on that point. She permits the Captain to have one because he is careful with it; beside, he owns the house and every thing in it; the land and every thing on it; and supports the family; therefore his sister indulges him. We now understand the internal arrangement of the Oakery. It is a fort, a castle, a citadel, of which Augusta is the scarp, Jim the glacis, Hannah the counterscarp, and Adolphus the ditch. The Captain studied the science of fortification after his return from the wars.
The Belgraves are intimate only with one family in the village, and they are new acquaintances—the Mewkers. There is Mr. Mewker, Mrs. Mewker, Mrs. Lasciver, formerly Miss Mewker, and six or seven little Mewkers. Mewker has the reputation of being a good man, but unfortunately his appearance is not prepossessing. He has large bunchy feet, with very ineffectual legs, low shoulders, a sunken chest, a hollow cavity under the waistcoat, little, weak, eyes that seem set in bladders, straggling hair, rusty whiskers, black, and yellow teeth, and long, skinny, disagreeable fingers; beside, he is knock-kneed, shuffling in gait, and always leans on one side when he walks. Uncharitable people say he leans on the side where his interests lie, but Captain Belgrave will not believe a word of it. Oh! no; Mewker is a different man from that. He is a mem-
