You now can understand why the servants from Portland Place had been so eager to come to us: one of the housemaids heard Mr. Sharpus say there was no will, and that my wife was heir to the property, and not Mr. John Tuggeridge: this she told in the housekeeper's room; and off, as soon as they heard it, the whole party set, in order to be the first to bear the news. We kept them, every one, in their old places; for, though my wife would have sent them about their business, my dear Jemimarann just hinted, "Mamma, you know _they_ have been used to great houses, and we have not; had we not better keep them for a little?"—Keep them then, we did, to show us how to be gentlefolks. I handed over the business to Mr. Crump without a single farthing of premium, though Jemmy would have made me take four hundred pounds for it; but this I was above: Crump had served me faithfully, and have the shop he should. [Illustration: FEBRUARY.—First Rout ] FEBRUARY. [1840. [Illustration] A PENNY POST-OBIT. MY DEAR FRIEND,—I write you this letter to explain to you why you have next to nothing to pay for it. The Government has settled the business; and the Chancellor of the Exchequer has resolved to set his revenue _a going by the Post_. We are to pay a penny for a letter, which is expected to have upon it the stamp of the Post Office, and of public approbation at the same time. I hardly think it will. Some of the community are looking dull about it already. There is a _pence_-ive air about the two—I beg pardon, the—one penny postmen, which strikes every one. They intimate that it is gammon to load a man with an additional hundredweight of paper, and to call _that_ a _reduction of public duty_. It clearly affects people of that _stamp_; and the public surmise it may even touch the Newspapers. In short, they say that the _Times_ will be quite altered by the _Post_. Ladies generally seem to like the idea, but there is a visible depression in the _mails_. Many a _coachman_ has been thrown off his _guard_, and surprised into a most determined alteration of _carriage_. The Government will be a political mid-wife, engaged in an everlasting delivery. London is already afflicted with a metropolitan rheumatism, produced by the introduction of fresh draughts into passages, the carpenters having cut holes in all the street-doors. Sanguine people, however, retain their knockers, in the hope of getting the reward offered for the discovery of _perpetual motion_! They say there is to be an issue of more than a million of letters a day; but men are a little at issue about this. There must be some truth in it, however, as two thousand counters have been engaged,—one thousand to _count_ them, and the other to _count them upon_. Sorters of all sorts are employed. At the Post Offices, at all hours, the _pigeon_ holes will be surrounded by _carriers_. The poor fellows will be like muskets,