Now, Mrs. BACKUP was one of your eminently respectable females, who are always loaded to the muzzle with Beautiful Moral Essays, which they try to cram down everybody’s throat, but never practise themselves.  She formerly kept a boarding-house in the city, where, at table regularly after soup, she would regale those present with long dissertations on the shocking immorality of the present day, varying the monotony, perhaps, by allusions to the boarders who had just left.  “Mr. SIMPSON was a pleasant-spoken young man as I want to see, and as good as the bank, but I’m afraid he was agettin’ dissipated;” or, “Mr. FIELDING was quiet and mannerly, and never found fault with his vittles, but he had one DREAD_ful_ habit;” and then she would sigh heavily.  And when little Miss PINKHAM, who occupied the second floor back (and who, being a schoolma’am, was naturally debarred from the other sex), indulged in the smallest possible flirtation with the good-looking young man opposite, Mrs. BACKUP’S sharp eye not only saw her, but Mrs. BACKUP’S sharp tongue took occasion to berate her severely on a Sunday morning (for then the boarders are all in), at the top of the first landing (for then the boarders could all hear her).  “I am saprised, Miss PINKHAM.  Why, when I see that young man asittin’ at his winder, and a blowin’ beans.  Yes, a blowin’ beans, Miss PINKHAM, through a horrible tin pop-gun at your’n, and a winkin’ vicious, and you a enjoyin’ on it, Miss PINKHAM, I sot down; yes, I sot right down, and I shuddered.  ’Sich doin’s in my house,’ says I, ‘I am totilly congealed.’” When all the time, mind you, the virtuous Mrs. BACKUP was a woman who would bear any amount of watching, having already caused three husbands to frantically emigrate to parts unknown.

Seeing that ARCHIBALD hesitated, she said:—­

“Well, young man, what’s wanted?”

“I—­I—­want to see ANN BRUMMET,” said ARCHIBALD.

“Oh, you do, do you?” rejoined Mrs. BACKUP, regally; “and who, may I ask, is ANN BRUMMET?”

“A young lady that I was—­a—­to meet here,” replied ARCHIBALD, timidly.

Mrs. BACKUP immediately organized a virtuous tableau, and glared at him majestically.

“A young lady you was to meet here. In-deed.  And do you think, young man, that my house is a place where young chaps can go a-roystorin’ and a-gallivinatin’ about, and a meetin’ young women?”

“But I don’t want to go oysterin’,” said ARCHIBALD, “and I don’t know how to galvinate.  I only want to tell her something.”

“Oh, to tell her something, is it?  Well, I’d have no objections, young man, if you said she was your wife. Then you’d have a right, but not now, for my cha-racter is precious to me, young man.”

“But she ain’t my wife,” said ARCHIBALD; “I only—­kind of know her, you see.”

“Drat the man,” said Mrs. BACKUP to herself; “he’s a born fool that can’t take a hint like that.  TEDDY!” she cried to a seedy-looking, pimply man, who was sucking a forlorn-looking pipe on the back-door step, “you’re wanted.”  She whispered a few words in his ear, and went up-stairs.