The Major, who had found it impossible, with his artificial leg, to keep up with the ladies, had availed himself of the circumstance of his being left alone with Cursty, to paint a vivid picture (as they hobbled through Hungerford Market) of the solitary state of his household, and the horrors of a life dependent for its comforts and enjoyments on the tender mercies of a selfish old housekeeper, expatiating in the meantime on the sufficiency of his funds to maintain a wife in ease, if not in luxury; and winding up with a modest eulogium as to the amiability of his temper—the domesticity of his habits—and his cat-like love of a quiet hearth. Mr. Sandboys had just inquired how it was—if such were the bent of his inclinations—that he remained in a state of wretched bachelorhood; and the Major had just answered that it was the very thing he wished to speak to him about, when a shrill voice suddenly shouted, “Pay here for the ‘Bee,’ gents! pay here!” The demand having been complied with, the Major, immediately he was on board the penny steamer, sought out a retired spot where he might continue the delicate subject of their previous conversation, and perceiving that the most quiet part of the vessel was immediately adjoining the line of demarcation between the lovers and the haters of the “fragrant weed,” drew his friend Cursty towards the gangway: leaning their backs against the funnel, the couple resumed the tender topic which had recently engaged them. As the “Bee” went buzzing over the water, the Major made the father of Elcy his own father-confessor as to the state of his bosom at that particular moment, declaring the object of his affection to be none other than that gentleman’s daughter. The simple and unobservant, because unsuspicious, Cursty was nearly taken off his nautical legs by the announcement: but referring the Major to Elcy herself for an answer, he confessed that, provided she saw no cause or impediment, &c., he himself would not be the man to forbid the banns; whereupon they both grew so interested in the “momentous question”—the Major intent on making the most of his qualifications for a good husband, and descanting rapturously on Miss Elcy’s possession of all the requisites for a good wife, and Cursty Sandboys lost in the pleasure of listening to the praises of his child—that, though the heat of the funnel at their backs was almost sufficient to cook an omelette, it was utterly unheeded by them. [Illustration: The Dispersion of the Works of all Nations From the great Exhibition of 1851 ]