But we cannot stop to moralize, it is our duty to recount; and if we could bring our minds into full sympathy with those whose history we are narrating, there are few subjects of sufficient importance to alienate attention from the theme of our present consideration. The dread of disappointment rendered Mrs. Hartland very cautious in divulging her hopes; but at length prospects of the most gratifying nature opened to her view, and Miss Ferret received permission to diffuse tidings which appeared to tell the acme of human felicity. Doctors and apothecaries, nurses and nurse-tenders, frocks, pinnafores, cradles, and caps, tops and bottoms, goats' whey, rennet-whey, asses'-milk, cows'-milk, and a thousand other appliances equally interesting of this important season, which was now unequivocally approaching, absorbed the thoughts, and occupied the conversation at Henbury. Mrs. Hartland reclined upon a sofa, and issued her orders from thence through the faithful Ferret, with as much pomp and ceremony as ever hung upon the Ottoman Divan; while Mr. Hartland's anxious office was to forestal the newspapers, seize upon the letter-bag, and prepare every visitor by regular instruction upon the topics of their discourse, lest the slightest imprudence in communicating the current rumours of the day, might disturb the nervous system of his wife. To this end, he generally took his station in an ante-room in which a sort of probationary noviciate was performed, and people, after being examined, admonished, and duly qualified, received admission tickets to the presence chamber. As the fulness of time advanced, several weighty consultations were held, which called forth every power of taste and understanding which the Hartlands possessed, to meet the opposite arguments which were propounded in them. Two debates of longer and more difficult deliberation than all preceding, were however happily adjusted to the entire satisfaction of the parties, and the perfect reconcilement of contending opinions. In one of these it was decreed that if a son were to bless the parent eyes, he should be christened Algernon Robinson; and if the soft smiles of a daughter were destined to awaken love, rather than ambition, Melasina was to be her name. Mr. Hartland's father had unfortunately been called Peter, Mrs. Hartland's progenitor Jacob; and the reader will admit that two more impracticable appellations were never unluckily brought together to perplex the counsels of a pair who were looking forward with eager raptures to the baptismal font, and habitually impressed at the _same time_, with the propriety of sending family echoes to the latest posterity.