would occasionally occur. When we had got to this, any expression of our wrath at her intrusion was impossible. As we entered the room we had intended almost to fling her manuscript at her head. We now found ourselves handling it almost affectionately while we expressed regret for our want of punctuality. Mrs. Brumby was gracious, and pardoned us, but her forgiveness was not of the kind which denotes the intention of the injured one to forget as well as forgive the trespass. She had suffered from us a great injustice; but she would say no more on that score now, on the condition that we would at once attend to her essay. She thrice repeated the words, “at once,” and she did so without rebuke from us. And then she made us a proposition, the like of which never reached us before or since. Would we fix an hour within the next day or two at which we would call upon her in Harpur Street and arrange as to terms? The lieutenant, she said, would be delighted to make our acquaintance. Call upon her!--upon Mrs. Brumby! Travel to Harpur Street, Theobald’s Road, on the business of a chance bit of scribbling, which was wholly indifferent to us except in so far as it was a trouble to us! And then we were invited to make arrangements as to terms! Terms!! Had the owner of the most illustrious lips in the land offered to make us known in those days to the partner of her greatness, she could not have done so with more assurance that she was conferring on us an honour, than was assumed by Mrs. Brumby when she proposed to introduce us to the lieutenant. When many wrongs are concentrated in one short speech, and great injuries inflicted by a few cleverly-combined words, it is generally difficult to reply so that some of the wrongs shall not pass unnoticed. We cannot always be so happy as was Mr. John Robinson, when in saying that he hadn’t been “dead at all,” he did really say everything that the occasion required. We were so dismayed by the proposition that we should go to Harpur Street, so hurt in our own personal dignity, that we lost ourselves in endeavouring to make it understood that such a journey on our part was quite out of the question. “Were we to do that, Mrs. Brumby, we should live in cabs and spend our entire days in making visits.” She smiled at us as we endeavoured to express our indignation, and said something as to circumstances being different in different cases;--something also, if we remember right, she hinted as to the intelligence needed for discovering the differences. She left our office quicker than we had expected, saying that as we could not afford to spend our time in cabs she would call again on the day but one following. Her departure was almost abrupt, but she went apparently in good-humour. It never occurred to us at the moment to suspect that she hurried away before we should have had time to repudiate certain suggestions which she had made.