could in some little unfurnished rooms over the stables! And, in a word, before Mr. Titmouse's grand guests had been at the Hall four-and-twenty hours, there was established there the same freezing state and solemn ceremony which prevailed in the earl's own establishment. Down came at length, thundering through the village, the earl's dusty travelling-carriage and four; himself, Lady Cecilia, and Miss Macspleuchan within, his valet and Lady Cecilia's maid behind: presently it wound round the park road, crashing and flashing through the gravel, and rattling under the old gateway, and at length stood before the Hall door--the reeking horses pulled up with a sudden jerk, which almost threw them all upon their haunches. Mr. Titmouse was in readiness to receive his distinguished visitors; the carriage-door was opened--down went the steps--and in a few moments' time the proud old Earl of Dreddlington and his proud daughter, having entered the Hall, had become the guests of its flustered and ambitious little proprietor. While all the visitors--great and small--are occupied in their dressing-rooms, recovering themselves from the cramp and fatigue of a long journey, and are preparing to make their appearance at dinner, let me take the opportunity to give you a sketch of the only one of them, of the smaller sort, to whom you are at present a stranger: I mean Mr. Tuft--Mr. VENOM TUFT. Oft hath an inexperienced mushroom-hunter, deceived at a distance, run up to secure what seemed to be a fine cluster of mushrooms, growing under the shade of a stately tree, but which, on stooping down to gather them, he discovers with disappointment and disgust to be no mushrooms at all, but vile, unwholesome--even poisonous funguses: which, to prevent their similarly deluding others, he kicks up and crushes under foot. And is not this a type of what often happens in society? Under the "cold shade of aristocracy," how often is to be met with--the SYCOPHANT?--Mr. Venom Tuft was one of them. His character was written in his face. Disagreeable to look at--though _he_ thought far otherwise--he yet contrived to make himself pleasant to be listened to, for a while, by the languid and _ennuyé_ fashionable. He spoke ever-- "In a _toady's_ key, With bated breath and whispering humbleness."