112 Mr. Metal. 



The Major's relict then, looked on the Metals, pere et 

 fille, in the light of a species of social vermin, and, in con- 

 sequence, she took especial pains to warn her hopeful son, 

 Bloomsbury Fitzfoodle Blenkinsop, a youth of singularly 

 mild and tame-rabbity disposition, goodness knows how 

 many times a day, on no account ever to cultivate, on 

 any pretence whatever, the acquaintance of either Mr. or 

 Miss Metal. 



Their appearance at church, too, on the first Sunday 

 after their arrival, caused great excitement amongst the 

 natives. Mrs. Blenkinsop and her friends had pictured to 

 themselves a stout, coarse, vulgar-looking man, with a 

 tendency to tight trousers and horse-shoe pins, accom- 

 panied by a snub-nosed flashily dressed damsel. Instead 

 of which they were quite flabbergasted to behold in Miss 

 Metal a remarkably good-looking, ladylike girl, uncom- 

 monly well dressed, from the top of her pretty French 

 bonnet to the tips of her very neat boots ; and in Mr. 

 Metal, the blackleg, the turfite, the everything bad, a par- 

 ticularly quiet-looking, sedately-attired person, who might 

 indeed, from the solemnity of his attire, have passed as 

 pretty nearly anything one chose to fancy — a great 

 London merchant, for instance, a lawyer in large practice 

 — anything, in fact, but a betting man. His well-cut 

 Poole-made black coat contrasted most favourably with the 

 baggy, ill-fitting garments belonging to Mr. Turtleton, the 

 rich banker, who occupied the pew opposite. Mr. Bleater, 

 the curate, looking up from reading the lessons, caught 

 pretty Miss Metal's eye, and was so struck all of a heap, 

 that he lost his place on the spot, and blushed in a pain- 

 ful manner under his spectacles. Bleater arranged with 

 himself forthwith that he would call on the morrow at 



