I confessed that she would not be my _model_, and Mr. Bolton continued, “But you and I shall have ample revenge, if I may depend on a little bit of _backstairs_ intelligence which has reached me through my own man. “Now, you must not set me down as an old gossip because I tell you so, and suppose that I am always employed in running to and fro, to pick up scandal; but really poetic justice requires that such a creature as Mrs. Hannaper should receive _some_ check, and be reminded of her age, before she is called to her great account. So far therefore, from thinking myself ill-natured at _chuckling_ in the anticipation of a disappointment, which I have good reason to believe is suspended by a hair over her head, I am bound as a Christian to rejoice in any thing that may awaken her to a sense of her folly, and drive her to more serious thoughts than those which possess her idle brain.” Much as I dislike Mrs. Hannaper, there was something so repugnant to my feelings of humanity in suffering a fellow-creature to encounter any ill, which timely notice might prevent, that I expostulated with Mr. Bolton, and implored him to apprize the old lady of his apprehensions, that so the catastrophe, however it might threaten, should be averted. Mr. Bolton was silent for a moment, while he fixed his eyes intently upon me, then catching my hand affectionately, he pressed it like a friend of the “olden time,” and with a tear starting to his eye, said, “God bless you child! my heart opens to the voice of nature, and it has taken me by surprise to-day, for her’s is a language which I seldom hear.” Oh, Julia, when such a commonplace sentiment as that which I had expressed, in wishing to spare a fellow-creature pain, had power to astonish by its novelty, and delight for its moral virtue, what a comment is furnished by such an anecdote as this upon modern society. If this be the world (and people are the same I suppose, whether rolling through the streets of London, or over the roads in Hampshire), defend me from its attractions. I feel like the country mouse longing for my grey peas and peaceful Glenalta; but the lovely Alps will refresh my eyes with images of God’s creation, and I shall soon bid farewell to these disgusting scenes of artificial life. Mr. Bolton, after the little episode which I have described, returned to the merry mood, and rubbing his hands in an ecstacy, said, “No, no, depend upon it I will be ‘mute as a coach-horse.’ You shall none of you know a word of the under-plot which is weaving. I will not be a tell-tale. Let all things take their course.”