Tom, though he has a small income, and lives in a small house, yet sits down one of a party of twelve to dinner every day of his life; these twelve consisting of Mrs. Fairfax, the nine Misses Fairfax, and Master Thomas Fairfax--the son and heir to twopence-halfpenny a-year. It is awkward just now to go and beg pot-luck from such a family as this; because, though a guest is always welcome, we are thirteen at table--an unlucky number, it is said. This evil is only temporary, and will be remedied presently, when the family will be thirteen _without_ the occasional guest, to judge from all appearances. Early in the morning Mrs. Fairfax rises, and cuts bread and butter from six o’clock till eight; during which time the nursery operations upon the nine little graces are going on. We only see a half dozen of them at this present moment, and in the present authentic picture, the remainder dwindling off upon little chairs by their mamma. The two on either side of Fairfax are twins--awarded to him by singular good fortune; and he only knows Nancy from Fanny [Illustration: THE HAPPY FAMILY.] by having a piece of tape round the former’s arm. There is no need to give you the catalogue of the others. She, in the pinafore in front, is Elizabeth, goddaughter to Miss Clapperclaw, who has been very kind to the whole family; that young lady with the ringlets is engaged by the most solemn ties to the present writer, and it is agreed that we are to be married as soon as she is as tall as my stick. If his wife has to rise early to cut the bread and butter, I warrant Fairfax must be up betimes to earn it. He is a clerk in a Government Office; to which duty he trudges daily, refusing even twopenny omnibuses. Every time he goes to the shoemaker’s he has to order eleven pairs of shoes, and so can’t afford to spare his own. He teaches the children Latin every morning, and is already thinking when Tom shall he inducted into that language. He works in his garden for an hour before breakfast. His work over by three o’clock, he tramps home at four, and exchanges his dapper coat for that dressing-gown in which he appears before you,--a ragged but honourable garment in which he stood (unconsciously) to the present designer. Which is the best, his old coat or Sir John’s bran new one? Which is the most comfortable and becoming, Mrs. Fairfax’s black velvet gown, (which she has worn at the Pocklington Square parties these twelve years, and in which I protest she looks like a queen), or that new robe which the milliner has has just brought home to Mrs. Bumpsher’s, and into which she will squeeze herself on Christmas day? Miss Clapperclaw says that we are all so charmingly contented with ourselves that not one of us would change with his neighbour; and so, rich and poor, high and low, one person is about as happy as another in Our Street. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Our Street, by M. A. Titmarsh