Such, your Lordship, is our present melancholy state. I have not dwelt, as I might do, on expenses, such as the dresses that are spoiled in the coal-cellar; the paying months’ wages instead of warnings; nor the trays upon trays of glass and china that are chucked down, as the way the servants always empty their hands when making their escapes from my husband’s false alarms. Sometimes it’s a chair falls overhead; or the wind slams the back door; or a smell of burnt wood from the kitchen; or the ironing-blanket; or fat catched; or fall of soot; or a candle-snuff; or a smoky coal; or, as I have known before now, only the smell of the drains; with a hundred other little things that will spring up in families, take what care you will. I ought not to forget thunder-storms, which are another source of trouble; for, besides seeing a dozen fanciful flashes for one real one, it is the misfortune of Mr. D. not to put faith in conductors, or, to use his own words, “in Franklin, philosophy, and fiddlesticks,--and a birch rod as likely to frighten away lightning as an iron one.” In the meantime, through the constant frights and flurries, I begin to find my own nerves infected by bad example, and getting into startlish habits; and my daughter Lucy, who was always delicate, seems actually going into a poor low way. Agreeable society might do much to enliven our spirits; but my husband is become very shy of visitors, ever since Captain Gower was so inconsiderate as to walk in, one foggy night, with a lighted cigar in his mouth. In fact he quite sets his face against the male sex: for, if they do not smoke cigars, he says, and carry lucifers, they strut on their iron heels and flourish about with iron-pointed walking-sticks and umbrellas. All which, Your Lordship, is extremely hard on myself and daughters, who, like all young people, are fond of a little gaiety; but the very utmost they are allowed, is a single quadrille party at Christmas, and then they are all obliged to dance in list shoes. [Illustration: A SET-OFF IN ACCOUNT.]