"No, thank heaven," answered Miss Ferret; "I know only by hearsay of the great pangs and perils, through the martyrdom of which you boast your new title; though our curate Mr. Pew, who had been but just appointed before your confinement, seeing me at your side when I accompanied you to the communion-table, stupidly churched me also, and gave me a share in all your thanksgivings for a son and heir. But depend upon it, my dear friend, that you will be tired of all this sort of thing by and by, and wish that you had not affronted your neighbours. Remember, after all said and done, that there cannot be any _great_ distinction in bringing a bantling into the world, when every beggar-woman in the parish has a troop at her heels. Your child will fare the better for not being thought so much of. I always say that 'the watched pot never boils,' and people are constantly disappointed themselves, besides being intolerable to others, when they make too great a fuss about any thing that belongs to them." Mrs. Hartland was deeply offended, and thus ended an intercourse which had ceased to please on either side, and the _go-between_ quitted Henbury and its inhabitants for ever, enlisting herself from that moment amongst the most active of the oppositionists, who ridiculed their folly and resented their pretensions. Matters proceeded in this train till our once social pair had scarcely a neighbour with whom they interchanged the usual hospitalities. They were, however, so absorbed by their domestic interests, that no void was felt, and the only serious grief which disturbed their happiness was the want of a companion about his own age for their idol Algernon, who improved in beauty as he advanced in growth, and gave evidence of talents at five years old which might have been deemed uncommon at double that age.