CHAPTER IX.
Trust me you have an exceeding fine lodging here,--very neat and private .-- BEN JONSON.
It was a tolerably long walk to the abode of which the worthy broker spoke in such high terms of commendation.

At length, at the suburbs towards Paddington, Mr.Brown stopped at a very small house; it stood rather retired from its surrounding neighbours, which were of a loftier and more pretending aspect than itself, and, in its awkward shape and pitiful bashfulness, looked exceedingly like a school-boy finding himself for the first time in a grown up party, and shrinking with all possible expedition into the obscurest corner he can discover.

Passing through a sort of garden, in which a spot of grass lay in the embraces of a stripe of gravel, Mr.Brown knocked upon a very bright knocker at a very new door.

The latter was opened, and a foot-boy appeared.
"Is Mrs.Copperas within ?" asked the broker.
"Yees, sir," said the boy.
"Show this gentleman and myself up stairs," resumed Brown.
"Yees," reiterated the lackey.
Up a singularly narrow staircase, into a singularly diminutive drawing-room, Clarence and his guide were ushered.

There, seated on a little chair by a little work-table, with one foot on a little stool and one hand on a little book, was a little--very little lady.
"This is the young gentleman," said Mr.Brown; and Clarence bowed low, in token of the introduction.
The lady returned the salutation with an affected bend, and said, in a mincing and grotesquely subdued tone, "You are desirous, sir, of entering into the bosom of my family.