DINING, AS IT IS PRACTISED ABOUT BEDFORD 

 SQUARE. 



THE clock struck seven, and I congratulated myself upon the cha- 

 racter I should acquire for punctuality, as the hackney-coach, which 

 had conveyed me from my chambers, drove up to No. Upper 

 Woburn Place. I knew that I could not as yet be supposed to be 

 detained by multiplicity of business ; and I thought it would speak 

 well for me, in .the outset of my legal career, to be an exact keeper 

 of hours. On this occasion, however, I was mistaken ; and I could 

 see by the bustling manner and turned-up cuffs of the footman who 

 admitted me, that I had made my appearance somewhat too soon. 

 He attempted to snatch my hat from me, and would also have de- 

 prived me of my favourite cane, but I managed, with some difficulty, 

 to remain master of both, and then gave him an opportunity of voci- 

 ferating my name to another domestic, who had posted himself at the 

 foot of the stairs during the skirmish, and whose ink-ingrained 

 fingers led me to surmise that he sometimes served my host in a more 

 professional capacity. 



On being ushered into the drawing-room, I found the mistress of 

 the house prepared to receive her guests. As I advanced to make 

 my bow, she rose in all the full-blown dignity w T hich the present 

 style of female dress is calculated to impart. She was young, and 

 rather pretty, but somewhat new to dinner-giving ; and while her 

 flushed cheeks and awkward manner betrayed the real state of her 

 mind, she thought it necessary to .assume an easy, languishing man- 

 ner, which, no doubt, she would herself have described by no other 

 term than that of fashionable. My friend Dewitt had taken care not 

 to encumber himself with a wife, until he had insured the means of 

 giving, with becoming splendour, the weekly entertainments at which 

 she was to preside. This desirable end being attained, and feeling 

 himself competent to vie with any one in those banquets, which are 

 at once the pride and solace of the tired votaries of the law, he had, a 

 short time before, chosen a partner whom he thought fitted to share in 

 such pleasures with him. Amongst her other qualifications, she had 

 the merit of being a native of the West-end of the town ; and this was 

 a circumstance which she did not suffer to escape the recollection of 

 her friends. 



" What a warm day it has been, considering the season, Mr. H ," 

 she began ; t( I really thought I should have been overpowered in 

 Grosvenor-Square. Lady A was quite distressed to see me in such 

 a state." I assented to the first part of this speech with the propor- 

 tion of sympathy which was becoming, and the respect which the 

 end of it was intended to call forth. A silence ensued ; during which 

 Mrs. Dewitt looked interesting ; and I, thinking it was my turn to 

 volunteer a remark, glanced round the room in hopes of picking up a 

 subject. The apartment, however, though as neat as a scanty allow- 

 ance of smart furniture could make it, did not furnish many ideas ; 

 but a piece of pink tape, peeping from under the sofa, afforded a 

 M. M. No. 87- 2 M 



