his other engagements, kept him out till a very late--or rather early--hour every morning. It was about half-past eleven o'clock one day towards the latter end of June, that Mr. Titmouse, having finished breakfast, (which was surely very early, since he had not gone to bed till four o'clock that morning,) a meal to which he invariably sat down alone, often not catching a glimpse of Lady Cecilia during the day, except on a chance encounter in the hall, or on the stairs, or when they were forced to go out to dinner together--had entered his library, to enjoy undisturbed the luxury of his hookah. The apartment was spacious and handsome. All the sides of it were occupied by very curious antique carved oak bookcases, which had belonged to the former tasteful occupant of the house, and from whom they had been purchased by Titmouse, who then bethought himself of procuring books to fill them. For this purpose, it luckily occurred to him, on seeing an advertisement of a library for sale by auction one day, that it would be a good speculation to be beforehand with the expected audience, and purchase the aforesaid library in a lump by private contract. He did so--and at a remarkably low price; giving directions that they should forthwith be carried to a bookbinder, named by the obsequious auctioneer--with orders to bind them all in elegant but as varied bindings as possible. Certainly the works were of a somewhat miscellaneous character;--old Directories; Poems by Young Ladies and Gentlemen; Ready-Reckoners; Doddridge's Expositor; Hints on Etiquette; two hundred Minerva press novels; triplicate copies of some twenty books on cookery; the art of war; charades; Cudworth's Intellectual System; books of travels; Bibles, dictionaries, prayer-books, plays; Treatises on Political Economy, and Dancing; adventures of noted highwaymen; the classics: moral essays; Enfield's Speaker; and Burn's Ecclesiastical Law. If these respectable works had had the least sense of the distinction which had been so unexpectedly bestowed upon them, they ought not to have murmured at never afterwards receiving the slightest personal attention from their spirited and gifted proprietor!--The room was lit by a large bow-window, which, being partially open, admitted the pleasant breeze stirring without; while the strong light was mitigated by the half-drawn blinds, and the ample chintz window-draperies. On the mantelpiece stood one or two small alabaster statues and vases, and a very splendid and elaborately ornamented French timepiece. The only unpleasantness perceptible, was the sort of disagreeable odor prevalent in rooms which, as in the present instance, are devoted to smoking. To this apartment had been also transferred many of the articles that I have described as having been visible in his rooms at the Albany. Over the mantelpiece was placed the picture of the boxers,--that of Mr. Titmouse being similarly situated in the dining-room. On the present occasion, he wore a full