What a nice place Abbots' House could be made with a little taste! So aristocratic! Just what I should like if I could afford it! The drawing-room should be done up in the Moorish style, with geranium-coloured silk curtains, like dear Lady L----'s boudoir at Twickenham.

And Mrs.Ashleigh has taken the house on lease too, I suppose!" Here Miss Brabazon fluttered her fan angrily, and then exclaimed, "But what on earth brings Mrs.Ashleigh here ?" Answered Mrs.Colonel Poyntz, with the military frankness by which she kept her company in good humour, as well as awe,-- "Why do any of us come here?
Can any one tell me ?" There was a blank silence, which the hostess herself was the first to break.
"None of us present can say why we came here.

I can tell you why Mrs.
Ashleigh came.

Our neighbour, Mr.Vigors, is a distant connection of the late Gilbert Ashleigh, one of the executors to his will, and the guardian to the heir-at-law.

About ten days ago Mr.Vigors called on me, for the first time since I felt it my duty to express my disapprobation of the strange vagaries so unhappily conceived by our poor dear friend Dr.Lloyd.And when he had taken his chair, just where you now sit, Dr.Fenwick, he said in a sepulchral voice, stretching out two fingers, so,--as if I were one of the what-do-you-call-'ems who go to sleep when he bids them, 'Marm, you know Mrs.Ashleigh?
You correspond with her ?' 'Yes, Mr.Vigors; is there any crime in that?
You look as if there were.' 'No crime, marm,' said the man, quite seriously.