"Becky, Becky!" she exclaimed, in a tone of lofty indignation--and thus summoning to her presence, from an adjoining apartment, her daughter, a little girl of about ten years of age--"rin owre dereckly to Lucky Anderson's and tell her to gie me my jeely can immediately." And Mrs Callender stamped her foot, grew red in the face, and exhibited sundry other symptoms of towering passion. Becky instantly obeyed the order so peremptorily given; and, while she is doing so, we may throw in a digressive word or two, by the way of more fully enlightening the reader regarding the turn which matters seemed now about to take. Be it known to him, then, that the demand for the jelly pot, which was now about to be made on Mrs Anderson, was not a _bonâ fide_ proceeding. It was not made in good faith; for Mrs Callender knew well, and had been told so fifty times, that the said jelly pot was no longer in existence as a jelly pot; and, moreover, she had been, as often as she was told this, offered full compensation, which might be about three farthings sterling money of this realm, for the demolished commodity. Moreover, again, it was three years since it had been borrowed. From all this, the reader will at once perceive what was the fact--that the sending for the said jelly pot, on the present occasion, and in the way described, was a mere breaking of ground previous to the performance of some other contemplated operations. It was, in truth, entirely a tactical proceeding--a dexterously and ingeniously-laid pretext for a certain intended measure which could not decently have stood on its own simple merits. In proof of this, we need only state, that it is beyond all question that nothing could have disappointed Mrs Callender more than the return of the desiderated jelly pot. But this, she knew, she had not to fear, and the result showed that she was right. The girl shortly came back with the usual reply--that the pot was broken; but that Mrs Anderson would cheerfully pay the value of it, if Mrs Callender would say what that was. To the inexpressible satisfaction of the latter, however, the message, on this occasion, was accompanied by some impertinences which no woman of spirit could tamely submit to. She was told, for instance, that "she made mair noise aboot her paltry, dirty jelly mug, a thousand times, than it was a' worth," and was ironically, and, we may add, insultingly entreated, "for ony sake to mak' nae mair wark aboot it, and a dizzen wad be sent her for't."