You must have heard of a recent calamity which threatened the lady; and on which that mad wag, John Bull, let fly some cutting jokes. A very sagacious police magistrate, accompanied by one of his _indefatigables_, went to _inspect the premises_, accompanied by a gentleman of the faculty; but, after all their united efforts to unravel the mystery, it turned out a mere _scratch_, a very flat affair. [Illustration: page313] ~314~~"I think," said Crony, "we have now arrived at the ultimatum of the widow's history, and may as well take a turn or two up the Steyne, to look out for other character. The ancient female you perceive yonder, leaning on her tall gold-headed cane, is Miss J----s, a maid of honour to the late Queen Charlotte, and the particular friend of Mrs. F----l: said to be the only one left out of eight persons, who accompanied two celebrated personages, many years since, in a stolen matrimonial speculation to Calais. She is as highly respected as her friend Mrs. F----l is beloved here." "Who the deuce is that strange looking character yonder, enveloped in a boat-cloak, and muffled up to the eyes with a black handkerchief?" "That is a very important personage in a watering place, I assure you," replied Crony; "being no other than the celebrated Peter Paragraph, the London correspondent to the Morning Post, who involves, to use his own phrase, the whole hemisphere of fashion in his mystifications and reports: informs the readers of that paper how many rays of sunshine have exhilarated the Brightonians during the week, furnishes a correct journal of fogs, rains, storms, shipwrecks, and hazy mists; and, above all, announces the arrivals and departures, mixing up royal and noble fashionables and _kitchen stuff'_ in the same beautiful obscurity of diction. Peter was formerly a _friseur_; but has long since quitted the shaving and cutting profession for the more profitable calling of collector of _on dits_ and _puffs extraordinaire_. The swaggering broad-shouldered blade who follows near him, with a frontispiece like the red lion, is the well-known radical, Jack S----h, now agent to the French consul for this place, and the unsuccessful candidate for the _independent_ borough of Shoreham." "A complete eccentric, by all my hopes of pleasure! Crony, who are those two dashing divinities, who come tripping along so lively yonder?" "Daughters of ~315~~pleasure," replied the cynic; "a pair of justly celebrated paphians, west-end comets, who have come here, no doubt, with the double view of profit and amusement. The plump looking dame on the right, is Aug--ta C--ri, (otherwise lady H----e); so called after the P--n--ss A----a, her godmamma. Her father, old Ab--t, one of Q----n C----te's _original_ German pages, brought up a large family in respectability, under the fostering protection of his royal mistress. Aug----ta, at the early age of fifteen, eloped from St. James's, on a matrimonial speculation with a young musician, Mr. An----y