"Why, we must find you a wife, one of those fair maidens, my boy. A good, strong-minded, lovable woman would be the making of you. Good people, those Carruthers, only the Major is so fearfully jealous of his wife--simple, quiet, good-hearted soul as ever breathed. And oh, by the bye, I have to apologise to you for something really unavoidable. I would not trouble you if I could help myself, but I can't. You see the Major is a first cousin of my wife's, and we always ask them to our little gatherings, while it so happened that Mrs Major's brother was staying with them, when, as it was either bring him or stay away themselves, Laura, my wife you know, thoughtlessly said `Bring him,' never stopping to think that every bed in the house was engaged. What to do I could not think, nor where to put him, till at last I said to myself why Gus Littleboy will help me out of the difficulty, and therefore, my lad, for two nights only I have to go down on my inhospitable marrowbones and ask you to sleep double. We've put you in the blue room, where there's an old four-poster that is first cousin to the great bed of Ware, so that you can lie almost a quarter of a mile from each other, more or less you know, so you won't mind, will you old fellow, just to oblige us you know?" Of course I promised not to mind, and a great deal more, but still I did mind it very much, for I omitted to say that, er--that er--I am extremely modest, and the fact of having a gentleman in the same room was most painful to my feelings. We soon after joined the party in the drawing-room; and, feeling somewhat refreshed, I tried to make myself agreeable, as it was Christmas-time, and people are expected to come out a little. So I brought out two or three conjuring tricks that I had purchased in town, and Broxby showed them off while I tried to play one or two tricks with cards; but, somehow or another, when Mrs Major Carruthers drew a card, I had forgotten the trick, and she had to draw another card which she dropped; and, when it was on the carpet, we both stooped together to pick it up; and you've no idea how confusing it was, for we knocked our heads together, when I distinctly heard some one go "Phut" in precisely the same way as a turkey-cock will when strutting; when, to my intense dismay, I again found that the Major was scowling at me fiercely. "Then I should go to bed if I were you, Timothy," I heard Mrs Major say soon after; and, on looking across the room, I saw that she was talking to her brother, but her eye was upon me, and she was smiling, so that I felt perfectly horrified, and looked carefully round at the Major; but he was playing cards, and did not see me.