I found that my mother was still from home, but expected to come back that night, and had written, to have the best bedroom prepared, for an invalid gentleman whom she would bring. This would, of course, be her brother William, of whom I had fully thought to hear as dead, and was greatly pleased to find it otherwise, having kind memories of him, and being uncommonly short of relatives. As there was still a good piece of daylight, and it seemed dull to sit there by myself, I resolved to reward the faithful _Grip_, by taking him to see his native land, as he fairly might consider Maiden Lane. So we set forth together to call on Mr. Chumps, who still carried on his nutritious business, and wore the blue apron more stoutly than ever. "Ha, my lad!" he cried, as I opened the shop-door, which rang a sharp tocsin against beef and mutton-reivers, "you are come just in time for a glass of the fizzing. Have you heard the good news? No, I s'pose not; you've been down among all them swells, so long. Wonder almost, you would deign to look us up. Go on into the parlour, with the missus, and our Linda. In ten minutes thirty seconds, I shall put the shutters up, and wouldn't take 'em down for the Dook, or his Royal Highness. Leastways, I might for H.R.H., if he were going to give a supper-party; but not for his Grace,--won't have shanks with his legs. Bill will be back in ten minutes; go in, lad." In the parlour I found Mrs. Chumps, and her daughter Belinda, and some one else sitting in the corner, who seemed to be doubtful about turning round, at the sound of my voice, or whatever it might be. The room was rather gloomy, from a balcony over the windows, and the evening now set in; and I thought, what a very shy young lady they have got! Or perhaps, she has had too much tea and cake, and is gone fast asleep in the corner. Not to disturb her, I sat down far away. "Poor dear!" said Mrs. Chumps, who was looking very well, and you might say ten years younger, with a new front to her hair, and a pink binding to her bosom, and a pair of long-skirted kid-gloves on her lap, and a juvenile jacket with Bohemian scollops, hung behind her, as if she had just pulled it off--which she never could have done, unless born in it. "Poor dear, she naturally feels it so deeply. Oh, Tommy Upmore, you men never feel!" "Don't we?" I replied, while wondering who the poor dear was, and what her feelings were. "Mrs. Chumps, if you had only seen the stroke of our eight, that beat Cambridge three years running, when he was compelled to have his wise tooth out, and he had only cut it two years, I can assure you, and the dentist attributed its state entirely to the way the wind came over his left shoulder, and he begged me to support him with my moral presence, that was how he put it, from his demoralisation----"