He hesitated--wished he could only just speak to me, and give me the draft himself. "Do as you like," Kennedy replied. "Miss Wilson is not at all anxious for you or your fifty pounds; but she has company and will not be disturbed to-night." "Well," said my lord, "I think you look like an honest, good sort of woman, who will not deceive me." "Never," said Kennedy, with earnestness, and he wrote a draft for me for fifty pounds, begging she would herself be at hand to let him in when he should arrive, the next night. "I will be very punctual," continued his lordship. "So will I too," repeated Kennedy; "I will wait for you in the passage;" and with this they took leave; and I immediately rang my bell for Will Halliday. "William," said I, "that gentleman will be here at ten to-morrow, and he will probably again ask for Kennedy. Can you look quite serious and declare to him you never heard of such a person?" "As grave as I do now, ma'am." "Very well, that is quite enough; but he will no doubt proceed to ask for me by my name. Can you still be serious, while declaring that you have no mistress, and that your master is you know well acquainted both with his lordship and his lady wife?" "Most certainly, ma'am," said Will, as seriously as though he had been at vespers, "I will just clap your directions down in my pocket-book, so you need not be afraid of me, ma'am; because you see, as I told you before, I'm the most particlerst man as is." "But suppose he insists, William?" "Oh, ma'am! I'll tell him I've got my knives to clean, and shut the door very gently in his face." "Thank you, William, I shall feel obliged to you." Smith, the haberdasher of Oxford-street, was the next person announced to me, and he followed William into the drawing-room. He is a short, thick-built man, with little twinkling eyes, expressive of eager curiosity, and a bald head. This man had known me when I was quite an infant, having served my mother I believe before I was born, and often talked and played with us all while children. As I grew up, his extreme vulgarity, and the amorous twinkle of his little eyes, furnished me with so much real sport and amusement, that, in gratitude for his being so very ridiculous, I had by degrees lost sight of all my usual reserve towards these sort of people: and once, when I was about eleven years of age, this man caught me in the very act of mimicking his amorous leers at our maidservant. I was close behind him and he saw me in the looking-glass. "Oh you rogue!" said Smith, and from that day good-bye all serious reserve between Smith and me. I would have cut him, only nobody sold such good gloves and ribbons. I often took people to his shop to amuse them, while I encouraged Smith to be as ridiculous as possible, by affecting to be rather flattered by his beautiful leering and his soft speeches.