CHAPTER I.
THE TWO BUNDLES OF HAY.
Lieutenant-General Sir George Griffin, K.C.B., was about seventy-five years old when he left this life, and the East Ingine army, of which he was a distinguished ornyment.

Sir George's first appearance in Injar was in the character of a cabbingboy to a vessel; from which he rose to be clerk to the owners at Calcutta, from which he became all of a sudden a capting in the Company's service; and so rose and rose, until he rose to be a leftenant-general, when he stopped rising altogether--hopping the twig of this life, as drummers, generals, dustmen, and emperors must do.
Sir George did not leave any mal hair to perpetuate the name of Griffin.
A widow of about twenty-seven, and a daughter avaritching twenty-three, was left behind to deploar his loss, and share his proppaty.

On old Sir George's deth, his interesting widdo and orfan, who had both been with him in Injer, returned home--tried London for a few months, did not like it, and resolved on a trip to Paris; where very small London people become very great ones, if they've money, as these Griffinses had.
The intelligent reader need not be told that Miss Griffin was not the daughter of Lady Griffin; for though marritches are made tolrabbly early in Injer, people are not quite so precoashoos as all that: the fact is, Lady G.was Sir George's second wife.

I need scarcely add, that Miss Matilda Griffin wos the offspring of his fust marritch.
Miss Leonora Kicksey, a ansum, lively Islington gal, taken out to Calcutta, and, amongst his other goods, very comfortably disposed of by her uncle, Capting Kicksey, was one-and-twenty when she married Sir George at seventy-one; and the 13 Miss Kickseys, nine of whom kep a school at Islington (the other 4 being married variously in the city), were not a little envius of my lady's luck, and not a little proud of their relationship to her.

One of 'em, Miss Jemima Kicksey, the oldest, and by no means the least ugly of the sett, was staying with her ladyship, and gev me all the partecklars.