Mr. Morton had again settled himself, and was deep in a trial for murder, when another stranger strode haughtily into the shop. The new-comer, wrapped in a pelisse of furs, with a thick moustache, and an eye that took in the whole shop, from master to boy, from ceiling to floor, in a glance, had the air at once of a foreigner and a soldier. Every look fastened on him, as he paused an instant, and then walking up to the alderman, said,-- “Sir, you are doubtless Mr. Morton?” “At your commands, sir,” said Roger, rising involuntarily. “A word with you, then, on business.” “Business!” echoed Mr. Morton, turning rather pale, for he began to think himself haunted; “anything in my line, sir? I should be--” The stranger bent down his tall stature, and hissed into Mr. Morton’s foreboding ear: “Your nephews!” Mr. Morton was literally dumb-stricken. Yes, he certainly was haunted! He stared at this second questioner, and fancied that there was something very supernatural and unearthly about him. He was so tall, and so dark, and so stern, and so strange. Was it the Unspeakable himself come for the linendraper? Nephews again! The uncle of the babes in the wood could hardly have been more startled by the demand! “Sir,” said Mr. Morton at last, recovering his dignity and somewhat peevishly,--“sir, I don’t know why people should meddle with my family affairs. I don’t ask other folks about their nephews. I have no nephew that I know of.” “Permit me to speak to you, alone, for one instant.” Mr. Morton sighed, hitched up his trousers, and led the way to the parlour, where Mrs. Morton, having finished the washing bills, was now engaged in tying certain pieces of bladder round certain pots of preserves. The eldest Miss Morton, a young woman of five or six-and-twenty, who was about to be very advantageously married to a young gentleman who dealt in coals and played the violin (for N----- was a very musical town), had just joined her for the purpose of extorting “The Swiss Boy, with variations,” out of a sleepy little piano, that emitted a very painful cry under the awakening fingers of Miss Margaret Morton. Mr. Morton threw open the door with a grunt, and the stranger pausing at the threshold, the full flood of sound (key C) upon which “the Swiss Boy” was swimming along, “kine” and all, for life and death, came splash upon him. “Silence! can’t you?” cried the father, putting one hand to his ear, while with the other he pointed to a chair; and as Mrs. Morton looked up from the preserves with that air of indignant suffering with which female meekness upbraids a husband’s wanton outrage, Mr. Roger added, shrugging his shoulders,-- “My nephews again, Mrs. K!”