room, was an uncommonly fine large gamboge ottoman, to match the couches, with a back in the centre of it, cushions, &c., for people to sit dos-à-dos, and look sentimental, whilst some fair cantatrice was singing and playing at the grand mahogany Broadwood, which is the next article of upholstery that claims the attention of the reader. After this came another round table, but not of marble, two more sofas of the gamboge damask, and then another window, looking into the "compound," which is the name given to a garden in India, because whoever has one, compounds for an extra share of malaria in the rains, and the pleasure of paying two or three gardeners a monthly stipend for selling your flowers to your neighbours.

Having walked up and down the centre of the room, and made the observations we have recorded above, Peregrine Pultuney began to take a survey of the upholstery running along the sides of the apartment; and he saw that between every two doors there was a space, which seemed precisely made for a long marble-slab ornament table, on which were placed a variety of China vases, China figures, artificial flowers on alabaster pedestals beneath sugar-loaf glasses, little bronze lamps, and other very ingenious specimens of inutility. Besides these tables, of which there were four in the room, Peregrine observed a couple of very handsome carved mahogany book-cases, with a variety of smart, gold-lettered books in them, to keep up the

credit of the establishment-an inlaid ebony and satin-wood chess-table, a vast number of footstools of all sorts and sizes, and an arm-chair in which it would be utterly impossible to sit for five minutes without falling asleep.

Having taken this mental inventory of Mrs. Poggleton's household furniture, Peregrine Pultuney seated himself on a sofa, and thinking to beguile the time that might happen to intervene before his respectable aunt made her appearance, he took from off the mahogany table a magazine-looking book, which upon inspection he discovered to be a number of the Calcutta Christian Observer-a discovery which would have given him a very favourable impression of the religious character of the lady of the house, if, most unfortunately, the volume, though nearly a month old, did not bear most unequivocal symptoms of having been unread, which symptoms were none other than the staggering fact, that the leaves of the book were

uncut.

"Heigh-ho!" exclaimed Peregrine Pultuney, with a smile on his face, "that's how old Radix used to find out that I had not learnt my Greek play at school, when I boggled at an uncut leaf in the middle of it;" and it is probable that his recollections might have taken a more lengthened scholastic turn, if an elderly lady, whom he immediately guessed to be his aunt, had not entered the

upholstery warehouse through one of the silk doors, preceded by a little capering Blenheim.

The lady, who now advanced towards Peregrine, was very stout and very good-looking. She was apparently a little above forty, and was most carefully and unexceptionably dressed. Nothing could have been in better taste than her cap and her spaniel; it was difficult to say which were the prettier, the ribbons of the one, or the ears of the other. Perhaps the lady rouged a little-a very little, but that was all fair; for surely the odds are too much against one, if one is expected, in a place like India, to have one's own natural colour, where one is out of one's own natural climate.

The little spaniel barked slightly, and the lady of the house bowed to match. Peregrine had risen from his seat, and was about to rush forward to embrace his aunt, when he was checked by the coldness of her demeanour. Her lips moved slightly, and she motioned Peregrine to be seated.

Having taken a chair at a respectable distance from our hero, the lady looked down at Peregrine's card, which she still held in her hand, and said, in a low, cold voice, "Have you been long arrived, Mr. Pultuney?"

"I arrived yesterday," returned Peregrine, still standing, for he was so taken aback by his aunt's want of cordiality, that he was arrested in the place where he stood, like a human creature turned into marble, as we read of them in the Classical Dictionary.

Pray be seated," said the lady of the house. Peregrine resumed his seat accordingly, and muttered to himself" A very cordial welcome, truly -Indian hospitality, forsooth!"

"I beg your pardon," said the lady of the house, "I did not hear what you said?"

"It is very hot," remarked Peregrine.

"Yes," said the lady, "very-What do you think of India?"

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Why, really, I can hardly judge yet," drawled Peregrine, in an affected tone of voice, which no one knew better than himself how to assume. "Really I don't know. In fact, my opportunities of forming an opinion have not been very extensive; but I should say, that it was very cold." Peregrine had collected himself sufficiently to be very disgusted, and he was acting his part accordingly.

The lady stared at him. "Cold, sir! I don't understand you,-I understood you to say it was hot."

"Yes, ma'am-I did say so," continued Peregrine, still slowly dragging out his words—“ hot, speaking physically, ma'am, with reference to the external caloric with which the atmosphere is laden; but cold, ma'am, icy cold, as to the social statevery cold indeed, 'pon honour."

The lady stared more than ever; she seemed to think that her visiter was either a great fop, or a great fool, or both; but as strict civility "under any circumstances," was a part of her creed, she did not take any notice of our hero's strange demeanour,

but asked him in the same languishing voice as she had first addressed him in, "Did you make a good passage, Mr. Pultuney?"

"Tolerable, ma'am, thank you," replied Peregrine.

"And may I ask what ship?" said the lady.

"Curse her affectation," thought Peregrine, "just as though she did not know very well, since she wrote me a letter to the Hastings."

The two last words of this were uttered aloud, and appeared to produce a great effect upon the lady, who opened her eyes wider than ever, and seemed suddenly to understand the relative situations of herself and her visiter, much better than she had done of first. "The Hastings. Oh! did you?" she said; "that's it, sir-you came in the Hastings ?"

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Yes, ma'am, I did," drawled Peregrine.

"And my nieces came with you?" said the lady, in a significant tone of voice, but still not diverging from the ladylike.

"Nieces!" exclaimed Peregrine, whose astonishment was so great that he could not act his part any longer-"I have not brought my sisters with me-I don't understand you, indeed."

"Sisters!" almost screamed the lady—“ what, in the name of goodness, do you mean?”

Why," said Peregrine, "I really beg your pardon; but I am afraid there has been some mistake. Are you not-I thought you were-my Aunt!"