“P.S.--So much for habit: I have become so accustomed to sign for the firm, that I actually forget that my name is Tobiah.” Mrs. Colville closed the letter, with a sigh, and placing it in her pocket, waited till the boys had breakfasted. As soon as they had quitted the room she handed it to her daughter, saving. “Read that, dear Emily: it is very kind of your uncle, but----” “Percy at a desk in Grubbinger Street! Oh, my dearest mamma, what a dreadful idea!” exclaimed the Rosebud, arching her brows, and pursing up her pretty little mouth with an expression of the most intense disapproval: “Uncle Tobiah means to be very kind, but he forgets what Percy is.” Mrs. Colville shook her head mournfully. “I am afraid it is we who forget, love,” she said: “Percy can no longer hope to pursue the career marked out for him--with the very limited means at my disposal, college is quite out of the question; nay, if Sir Thomas Crawley persists in his demand for the incoming tenant’s claim to these dilapidations, and should prove his right to it, I shall be unable to send the boys to school at all; indeed, I must not reject your uncle’s offer rashly. I shall consult Mr. Slowkopf on the subject; he is a very prudent adviser.” “Oh! if you mean to ask _him_, the matter is as good as settled, and poor Percy chained to a desk for life,” cried Emily. “Ah!” she continued, as a tall, thin, gaunt figure, clothed in rusty black, passed the window, “here he comes--the creature always puts me in mind of that naughty proverb about a certain person: one no sooner mentions him than there he is at one’s elbow;--but, if you really want to talk sense to him, mamma dear, I’d better go, for I shall only say pert things and disturb you: he is so delightfully slow and matter-of-fact, that I never can resist the temptation of plaguing him;” and as she spoke, the Rosebud laughed a little silvery laugh at her own wickedness, and tripped, fairy-like, out of the apartment. The worthy Mr. Slowkopf, who had held the office of curate of Ashburn for about two years, was a very good young man, and nothing else; all his other qualities were negative. He wasn’t even positively a fool, though he looked and acted the part admirably. He was essentially, and in every sense of the word, a slow man: in manners, ideas, and appearance, he was behind the age in which he lived; in conversation he was behind the subject discussed; if he laughed at a joke, which, solemnly and heavily, he sometimes condescended to do, it was invariably ten minutes after it had been made. He never heard of Puseyism till Tract Ninety had been suppressed, or knew of the persecutions and imprisonments of Dr. Achilli till that amateur martyr was crying aloud for sympathy in Exeter Hall; he usually finished his fish when the cheese was being put on table; and went to bed as other people were getting up. Still, he had his good points. Unlike King Charles, of naughty memory, “Who never said a foolish thing,