Mr. Andrew Dormer was a favorite guest at the tables of his wealthy fellow-citizens. His perfect suavity of manner, his keen appreciation of gastronomic art, and his skillful carving, won greater favor than would the possession of the richest treasures of learning or the highest intellectual endowments. “A clever fellow,” was Andrew Dormer when dining out. But, whereas the rules of society require that a guest should be pleased with every thing, the modern social economy demands that the master of a family should, at home, be pleased with nothing. The forementioned sprites of the air who attended at the family dinners of the Dormers, were beginning to look a little glum; the only bright things to be seen on these occasions were the polished knives and Miss Ariana’s eyes. The door had scarcely closed after the exit of Mr. Atherton Burney, when the shuffling and stamping were heard by which the lord of the mansion was wont to announce his arrival. Before the meek Mrs. Dormer obtained a view of that redoubtable personage, a scolding soliloquy fell upon her trembling ear. “Nothing ever in order in this house! A mat I bought only a month ago, all torn to rags! Smell of dinner coming all the way to the front door! Over-done! Knew it by the first snuff! Bad servants! All this comes of a careless mistress. Harriet! Harriet, I say!” “What is it, Andrew?” inquired the soft voice of Mrs. Dormer, as she put her head timidly out of the dining-room door. “Nothing in this house but rack and ruin,” exclaimed Mr. Dormer, dashing more vinegar into his tone and manner than either the occasion or his own feelings required. “What’s the use of buying any thing, I say, if this is the way it is to be treated?” And he pointed at the mat, which his own outrageous stamping had torn to tatters. Ariana had the same instinctive knowledge of a family feud as the war-horse has of a battle, and rushed to the charge in her sister’s defense. “What!” she exclaimed, “all that hemp left of the mat you have tried so faithfully to annihilate! When I heard your last furious attack, I did not think there would be a single shred remaining in the shape of a mat.” Such a beseeching look as Mrs. Dormer gave Ariana as she herself stood trembling in her shoes! What was the reason, that instead of becoming indignant at the impertinence of his sister-in-law, Mr. Dormer tried to look amiable? It might have been that he read that mischievous glance, which said, “Ignoble ambition to be a triton among ‘minnows.’” If Ariana had not been dependent she would have been less saucy, but so fearful was she of becoming cringing from interested motives, that she went to the other extreme, and dared “To beard the lion in his den.”