“George,” said my brother to me the last time I paid him a visit at the old hall, “don't be angry, my dear fellow, but Maria is in a--hum--in a delicate situation, expecting her--hum”--(the eleventh)--“and do you know you frighten her? It was but yesterday you met her in the rookery--you were smoking that enormous German pipe--and when she came in she had an hysterical seizure, and Drench says that in her situation it's dangerous. And I say, George, if you go to town you'll find a couple of hundred at your banker's.” And with this the poor fellow shook me by the hand, and called for a fresh bottle of claret. Afterwards he told me, with many hesitations, that my room at Boodle Hall had been made into a second nursery. I see my sister-in-law in London twice or thrice in the season, and the little people, who have almost forgotten to call me uncle George. It's hard, too, for I am a lonely man after all, and my heart yearns to them. The other day I smuggled a couple of them into my chambers, and had a little feast of cream and strawberries to welcome them. But it had like to have cost the nursery-maid (a Swiss girl that Fitz-Boodle hired somewhere in his travels) her place. My step-mamma, who happened to be in town, came flying down in her chariot, pounced upon the poor thing and the children in the midst of the entertainment; and when I asked her, with rather a bad grace to be sure, to take a chair and a share of the feast--“Mr. Fitz-Boodle,” said she, “I am not accustomed to sit down in a place that smells of tobacco like an ale-house--an ale-house inhabited by a SERPENT, sir! A SERPENT!--do you understand me?--who carries his poison into his brother's own house, and purshues his eenfamous designs before his brother's own children. Put on Miss Maria's bonnet this instant. Mamsell, ontondy-voo? Metty le bonny a mamsell. And I shall take care, Mamsell, that you return to Switzerland to-morrow. I've no doubt you are a relation of Courvoisier--oui! oui! courvoisier, vous comprenny--and you shall certainly be sent back to your friends.” With this speech, and with the children and their maid sobbing before her, my lady retired; but for once my sister-in-law was on my side, not liking the meddlement of the elder lady.