rents that ought never to have been so high; and laboring men were about to be compensated for a year of hunger, with a single day of roast beef and plum pudding. Folly, in white waistcoat, was now quoting old songs, and dreaming of new monasteries, as if it was a whit less difficult to turn a modern Christmas into an ancient Yule, than to change a lump of sea-coal into a log of pine. Sensible people, on the contrary, content to live in their own times, and not so ravished as Mr. Owlet with the ages of darkness, or the things thereof, were buttoning their coats, without a sigh for the doublets of their fathers; going to and fro upon rail-roads, with a decided preference of speed and security to robbery and romance; nay, they were dispatching or meditating hospitable messages to their friends, and preparing for the festivities of the season, without a thought of a boar's head, or a notion on the subject of medieval gastronomy.

The Spreads, among others, were now beginning to discuss the hospitable plans which the approaching anniversary suggested: who were to be invited for the holy days-what were to be the amusements-what the cheer-what mighty pies-what ample roundswhat cheeses of Gloucester-what hams of Yorkshire-what turkeys of Norfolk. Many relations had they, more friends, and a still larger host of acquaintances. But at Christmas it was their wont to ask those only who had no firesides of their own, round which to assemble at that gracious season; the waifs and strays of society, the solitary bachelor, the lone maiden lady, the child who had no parents, or whose parents were too remote to allow of his return to their hearts and homes, at the time when "Home! home!" is the universal cry through the schools of England. There was old Mrs. Briscoe, whom it was, indeed, very good in any body to invite, for she had certain oddities, which made her an exceedingly troublesome visitor, particularly in the night season. There were Adelaide and Laura Smyly, clever, handsome, laughing girls, with no fortunes but their high spirits. and good looks-orphans, twins, so exceedingly like each other, that people were always calling Adelaide Laura, and Laura Adelaide; and Mr. Philip Spread was unable to fall in love with one without falling in love with the other also. Then there was Mr. St. Leger, a young Irishman in Mr. Spread's counting-house, who had never any great fancy for a trip in the depth of winter to the coast of Kerry, where his father lived.

As to Mr. Owlet, his presence was a matter of course, when he was not engaged more piously elsewhere, composing a tract, restoring a church, hunting for relics, founding a monastery, or reviving

some enlightened usage, or frolicsome institution of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Mr. Barker, too, was always welcome, but then it was not always an easy matter to prevail upon Mr. Barker to come. As to Mark Upton, he was always up to his eyes and ears in professional or parliamentary business; always preparing bills or composing blue-books. Nobody ever thought of asking him to merry-makings. He was the sort of man who would discuss the evidence before the Andover committee in a box at the opera, Grisi performing Norma; or go into the question of the broad and narrow guage in a gondola, or on the pass of the Grimsel.

Upon the present occasion all the personages mentioned, except Upton, were to be invited. Mrs. Spread was to write to old Mrs. Briscoe; Miss Spread undertook the dispatch to the Smyly girls, who were either in London or Hampshire; and Mr. Spread undertook to invite St. Leger, and write to Barker, whose crotchety notions of propriety would have made him highly indignant, had the most welcome communication imaginable been made through a female medium, when there existed a gentleman, who might have been made the instrument of conveying it. A circumstance, however, occurred, which varied these arrangements to a certain extent. Mr. Spread was suddenly called to London, by an important matter of business requiring his immediate personal attention; there was no occasion, therefore, to write to Barker-Mr. Spread would meet him in town, and bring him back with him for the holydays.

"Must you go yourself-can't you send Mr. St. Leger?" said Mrs. Spread, in those soft, earnest, conjugal tones of hers-thinking of the time of the year, of rail-way accidents, of all things possible and impossible, and always unhappy at an hour's separation from her husband. Her hand was on his shoulder as she spoke. She knew in her heart of hearts that he was just as reluctant to leave his family, even for a single day, as they were to be left by him; yet she added,

"You know you need not go yourself."

"I must, love," was his laconic answer.

Mr. Spread, though never ruffled by his affairs, underwent an instant change, directly his mind was occupied by any matter of business. The alteration was chiefly in his eye: it lost its social sparkle, and took a considerate and official expression. There was evidently no help for it; that look said so even more distinctly than the peremptory words which it accompanied. There was nothing to be done but to pack his portmanteau, cover him with kisses, load him with commissions (trust women for that), insist upon his return

in three days at farthest, and order the carriage to take him to the rail-way station. His last words, as the train began to move, were"I'll bring Barker back with me." Then a storm of " Good-by, papas," rose from the platform, and followed, and still followed him, until the engine rushed into the tunnel, like a fire-eyed dragon into his cave.

The young Spreads (it may easily be supposed) were by no means so fond of Mr. Barker as their father was; he scolded the girls, looked cross when they laughed, criticised their dress, snubbed them when they talked of pictures or books, rated them for crossing their letters, and put them on half allowance of kisses, they were so afraid of giving vent to their usual tenderness in the presence of so austere a character. Philip, too, stood in great awe of him; Barker checked his fopperies, interfered with his self-display, and detected his ignorance of books which he quoted without having taken the preliminary trouble of reading them. Nothing escaped Barker, not even the way he tied his cravat, or arranged his hair, which was generally, indeed, after the worst European models-Young France and Young Germany.

But if Barker was bland and clement any where, it was with the Spreads. Spread possessed an influence resulting from an ancient friendship; but Mrs. Spread, under the guise of almost timorous respect, exercised a still greater ascendency over him. Although Barker had never had an establishment of his own, and shuddered at the thought of having one, no man knew better what a well-regulated house was, no man was more uncomfortable where things were at sixes and sevens, or retained a more vindictive recollection of the annoyances occasioned by the misrule of children and maladministration of a household.

"Do you think he will come to us, mamma?" said Elizabeth, as they sat round the fire after Mr. Spread's departure, chatting of their social arrangements.

“I think he will, and I hope he will,” said Mrs. Spread, with emphasis on the word " hope." "Of all your papa's friends, I think

he loves Mr. Barker best."

"You may hang up your harp, Augusta by the waters of Mersey," said Philip.

"I wish Mr. Barker was married," said one of the little girls. "More extraordinary things have happened," said Mrs. Spread. "You see, Augusta, you have a chance," said Philip. There was an old joke in the family about Augusta making a conquest of Mr. Barker.

“That would be a prize, indeed,” said Augusta; "but I am not so ambitious. What think you of Laura Smyly for him?"

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• Philip says no to that," says Mrs. Spread, smiling.

How can you say so, mother," remonstrated Philip, looking much piqued, “when you know I am in love with Miss Marable-or at all events with Bessie Bomford?"

There was a general laugh at this naïve declaration of the fickle Philip; who, to escape the ridicule he had so justly earned, strode over to the window, and affected to take a sudden interest in the heavens. It was a tolerably clear evening for Liverpool, and some half dozen stars and fragments of constellations were just dimly visible in the murky firmament. He showed them Orion, and informed them that it was Cassiopeia's chair, pointed out the part of the sky where the new planet was not to be seen, assured his sisters that from his own researches he suspected there was still another planet beyond that again, and grew so eloquent on the precession of the equinoxes that little Katherine, who thought he said procession, inquired if it were as fine as the lord mayor's show.

CHAPTER IV.

Why, do you see, sir, they say I am fantastical; why, true, I know it, and I pursue my humor still, in spite of this censorious age. 'Slight, an a man should do nothing but what a sort of stale judgments about this town will approve in him, he were a sweet ass. For mine own part, so I please my own appetite, I am careless of what the fusty, world speaks of me. Puh! Every Man out of his Humor.

Mr. Spread in London-The Albany-The Bachelor's Chambers-His Breakfast-His Library-The Bachelor appears-His Person, Dress, and Address -His Convivial Correspondence, and Comments thereon-Peeps into London Houses The Animals' Friends' Society-Barker offered the Vicepresidency, and declines it-His Scheme of Life-His odd Opinions on Winds-Spread's Cowardice-Barker and Spread Paralleled.

THE business which Mr. Spread had in London was connected with the termination of his mercantile career. Lawyers were to be employed, deeds were to be executed or canceled, suits instituted, obligations discharged, debts called in, accounts balanced, and so forth. Much as he delighted in Barker's society, and great as was his eagerness to meet him, he deferred his visit to the Albany until he had first seen his friend Upton and his other professional advisers, and put his affairs in a way to a speedy and satisfactory issue. Then he might have been seen, one bright, frosty forenoon, proceeding from his lodgings in Suffolk-street, along Pall Mall, up St. James's-street, and thence to his friend's chambers, healthy in mind and body, handsome and well-dressed, his decent corpulence attired in an ample blue body-coat, with gilt buttons, his waiscoat buff, his trowsers gray, his boots brilliant, compelled to exercise his ponderous eye-glass, but losing little that was to be seen with its assistance, whether a political friend dropping down to Brooke's, a caricature of Lord Brougham in a shop-window, or, peradventure, a pretty woman on her wicked way to expend her husband's dear-earned cash in shawls and ribbons at Swan and Edgar's.

You know the Albany-the haunt of bachelors, or of married men who try to lead bachelors' lives the dread of suspicious wives, the retreat of superannuated fops, the hospital for incurable

B*