Was ever a poor dear married lady so tormented in all her life? _That_ Duffy was bad enough, as the reader can plainly see now; but _that_ Wittals was ten times worse, as the reader shall see presently. Now, _par examp_ (as we say at _Bologne-sur-mere_,) dear--dear--_dear_ uncle R--msb--tt--m, like a good generous old soul as he is, would go sending up to that cherub of a Kitty of mine, a beautiful little love of a pet lamb, that had the most heavenly fore and hind quarters I think I ever beheld in all my born days; and it was so nice and fat that it quite made my mouth water to look at it--even alive. Still it was so fond and tame, and that darling ducks-o’-diamonds of a Kitty of mine was so pleased with her tiddy-ickle bar-lam as she used to call it--bless her little eyes! (please excuse a fond mother’s feelings, gentle reader,)--that, though I couldn’t look at the animal without thinking of mint sauce, and the animal cost me near upon a shilling a week for bread, and milk, and turnips, yet I thought as dear good uncle R--msb--tt--m had sent it up, and as he was Kitty’s godfather, and had neither chick nor child, and was actually rolling in money (if I might be allowed so strong an expression) I thought, I say, he might be offended, if it came to his ears that we had eaten the darling little pet for dinner, immediately after its arrival in town. So we put a sweet pretty blue sarsnet ribbon round its fat neck, and kept it in the garden by day, and the knife house by night, till really the thing’s bed-chamber “foohed” so, that it was enough to knock you down. The worst of it was, too, that do what we would, we could not keep the little love’s white coat clean in this grubby “metropolis of the world,” though we scoured it well at least once a week in our own foot-bath; for directly after we had washed it, and put it out in the garden again, down would come the smuts so thick, that in less than half-an-hour one would have fancied the natural colour of the poppet’s coat was pepper and salt; and what used to put me in such a passion was, if I went out in the garden of an evening, in my sweet white muslin skirt and black velvet body to fondle the dingy little brute, it _would_ get _so_ affectionate, I declare, and _would_ come rubbing up against my flounces, until they looked as black as a coal heaver’s stockings on a Saturday. But what annoyed me more than all was--bother take the thing!--it would grow so fast, that, though I must have wasted at least a gallon of gin in trying to stop its growth, still it was all of no use, and I only kept making the creature so tipsy, that it would prance about like a mad thing, and half frighten me out of my life. Pet lambs are one thing, but the idea of going and bestowing your affections on a great hulking sheep with horns long enough to poke both your eyes out, was what I had no notion of doing. Plague take that cruel Wittals too! no sooner had he set foot in the house, and seen this new member of the