After casting about for some time for a name which should be worthy of her, he decided in favor of Sophronia Sphynx, as being euphonious and genteel, and, furthermore, indicative of mystery.  Under this title the Marchioness repaired in tears to the school of his selection, from which, as she soon distanced all competitors, she was removed before the lapse of many quarters to one of a higher grade.  It is but bare justice to Mr. Swiveller to say that although the expense of her education kept him in straightened circumstances for half-a-dozen years, he never slackened in his zeal, and always held himself sufficiently repaid by the accounts he heard of her advancement.

In a word, Mr. Swiveller kept the Marchioness at this establishment until she was, at a moderate guess, full nineteen years of age, at which time, thanks to her earliest friend and most loyal champion, Richard Swiveller, the shadows of a bitter past had been chased from her memory by a happy present, and she was as good-looking, clever, and good-humored a young woman as ever a real Marchioness might have been.

MORLEENA KENWIGS

[Illustration:  The Kenwigses]

MORLEENA KENWIGS

The family who went by the designation of “The Kenwigses” were the wife and olive branches of one Mr. Kenwigs, a turner in ivory, who was looked upon as a person of some consideration where he lodged, inasmuch as he occupied the whole of the first floor, comprising a suite of two rooms.  Mrs. Kenwigs too, was quite a lady in her manners, and of a very genteel family, having an uncle, Mr. Lillyvick, who collected a water-rate, and who she fondly hoped, would make her children his heirs.  Besides which distinction, the two eldest of her little girls went twice a week to a dancing-school in the neighborhood, and had flaxen hair tied with blue ribbons, hanging in luxuriant pigtails down their backs, and wore little white trousers with frills round the ankles;—­for all of which reasons Mr. and Mrs. Kenwigs, and the four olive Kenwigses, and the baby, were considered quite important persons to know.

Upon the eighth anniversary of Mrs. Kenwigs’ marriage to Mr. Kenwigs, they entertained a select party of friends, and on that occasion, after supper had been served, the group gathered by the fireside; Mr. Lillyvick being stationed in a large arm-chair, and the four little Kenwigses disposed on a small form in front of the company, with their flaxen tails towards them, and their faces to the fire; an arrangement which was no sooner perfected than Mrs. Kenwigs was overpowered by the feelings of a mother, and fell upon Mr. Kenwigs’ shoulder, dissolved in tears.

“They are so beautiful!” she said, sobbing.  “I can—­not help it, and it don’t signify!  Oh, they’re too beautiful to live—­much too beautiful!”

On hearing this alarming presentiment of their early death, all four little girls raised a hideous cry, and, burying their faces in their mother’s lap simultaneously, screamed until the eight flaxen tails vibrated; Mrs. Kenwigs meanwhile clasping them alternately to her bosom, with attitudes expressive of distraction.