"By the way, Tag," exclaimed Mrs. Tag-rag, suddenly, but in the same mournful tone, addressing her husband, "you haven't of course forgot the flowers for my new bonnet?" "Never once thought of it," replied Tag-rag, doggedly. "You haven't! Good gracious! what am I to go to chapel in next Sunday?" she exclaimed with sudden alarm, closing her book, "and our seat in the very front of the gallery!--bless me! I shall have a hundred eyes on me!" "Now that you're coming down a bit, and dropped out of the clouds--or p'r'aps I should say--come up from beneath!--Dolly," said her husband, much relieved, "I'll tell you a bit of news that will, I fancy, rather"---- "Come! what is it, Tag?" she inquired with a sort of languid curiosity. "What should you say of a chance of a certain somebody" (here he looked unutterable things at his daughter) "that shall be nameless, becoming mistress of ten thousand a-year?" "Why"--Mrs. Tag-rag changed color--"has any one fallen in love with Tab?" "What should you say, Mrs. T., of our Tab marrying a man with ten thousand a-year? There's for you! Isn't _that_ better than all your rel---- hem!" "Oh, Tag, don't say that; but"--here she hastily turned down the leaf of _Groans from the Bottomless Pit_, and tossed that inestimable work upon the sofa--"do tell me, lovey! what _are_ you talking about?" "What indeed, Dolly!--I'm going to have him here to dinner next Sunday." Miss Tag-rag having been listening with breathless eagerness to this little colloquy between her prudent and amiable parents, unconscious of what she was about, poured almost all the contents of the tea-pot into the sugar-basin, instead of her papa's and mamma's tea-cups. "Have _who_, dear Tag?" inquired Mrs. Tag-rag, impatiently. "Who? why whom but my Tittlebat Titmouse!! You've seen him, and heard me speak of him often, you know"---- "What!--_that_ odious, nasty"---- "Hush, hush!" involuntarily exclaimed Tag-rag, with an apprehensive air--"That's all past and gone--I was always a little too hard on him. Well, anyhow, he's turned up all of a sudden master of ten thousand a-year. He has indeed--may this piece of toast choke me if he hasn't!" Mrs. Tag-rag and her daughter sat in speechless wonder. "Where did he see Tab, Taggy?" inquired at length Mrs. Tag-rag. "Oh--I--I--why--you see--I don't exactly think _that_ signifies so much--he _will_ see her, you know, next Sunday." "So, then, he's positively coming?" inquired Mrs. Tag-rag, with a fluttered air. "Y--e--s--I've no doubt."--(I'll discharge Lutestring to-morrow, thought Tag-rag, with a sharp inward spasm.) "But aren't we counting our chickens, Taggy, before they're hatched? If Titmouse is all of a sudden become such a catch, he'll be snapped up in a minute, you know, of course"---- "Why, you see, Dolly--we're first in the market, I'm sure of that--his attorney tells me he's to be kept quite snug and quiet under my care for months, and see no one"----