In this way it was that my aunt left us. I was not aware of her departure, for I was at the office at the time; and strolling back at five with Gus, saw my dear Mary smiling and bobbing from the window, and beckoning to us both to come up. This I thought was very strange, because Mrs. Hoggarty could not abide Hoskins, and indeed had told me repeatedly that either she or he must quit the house. Well, we went upstairs, and there was Mary, who had dried her tears and received us with the most smiling of faces, and laughed and clapped her hands, and danced, and shook Gus's hand. And what do you think the little rogue proposed? I am blest if she did not say she would like to go to Vauxhall! As dinner was laid for three persons only, Gus took his seat with fear and trembling; and then Mrs. Sam Titmarsh related the circumstances which had occurred, and how Mrs. Hoggarty had been whisked away to Fulham in Mr. Brough's splendid carriage-and-four. "Let her go," I am sorry to say, said I; and indeed we relished our veal-cutlets and jam-pudding a great deal more than Mrs. Hoggarty did her dinner off plate at the Rookery. We had a very merry party to Vauxhall, Gus insisting on standing treat; and you may be certain that my aunt, whose absence was prolonged for three weeks, was heartily welcome to remain away, for we were much merrier and more comfortable without her. My little Mary used to make my breakfast before I went to office of mornings; and on Sundays we had a holiday, and saw the dear little children eat their boiled beef and potatoes at the Foundling, and heard the beautiful music: but, beautiful as it is, I think the children were a more beautiful sight still, and the look of their innocent happy faces was better than the best sermon. On week-days Mrs. Titmarsh would take a walk about five o'clock in the evening on the _left_-hand side of Lamb's Conduit Street (as you go to Holborn)--ay, and sometimes pursue her walk as far as Snow Hill, when two young gents from the I. W. D. Fire and Life were pretty sure to meet her; and then how happily we all trudged off to dinner! Once we came up as a monster of a man, with high heels and a gold-headed cane, and whiskers all over his face, was grinning under Mary's bonnet, and chattering to her, close to Day and Martin's Blacking Manufactory (not near such a handsome thing then as it is now)--there was the man chattering and ogling his best, when who should come up but Gus and I? And in the twinkling of a pegpost, as Lord Duberley says, my gentleman was seized by the collar of his coat and found himself sprawling under a stand of hackney-coaches; where all the watermen were grinning at him. The best of it was, he left his _head of hair and whiskers_ in my hand: but Mary said, "Don't be hard upon him, Samuel; it's only a Frenchman." And so we gave him his wig back, which one of the grinning stable-boys put on and carried to him as he lay in the straw.