Matthew Maltboy weighed two hundred and twenty pounds.  As associate counsel of Overtop, he made an imposing show in court, which was not fully borne out by his legal attainments.  He was always talking of matrimonial intentions—­a sure sign that a man never will be married.  His last rebuff from Miss Trapper (now the wife of a wealthy tanner and currier) had taught him to keep his flirtations within narrower limits; but he openly professed, and probably believed, that, when he really wanted to marry—­without joking, you know—­he could take his pick from the wide and varied ranges of female society.  He smoked incessantly like a martyr, to reduce his flesh, but no adipose matter ever vanished in that cloud of sacrifice!

Mash, the cook, bestowed her honest hand and maiden heart upon Patching, the artist, who had first seen her at the station house, and there contracted an artistic admiration of her face and figure.  She would have preferred a pirate; but Patching’s enormous hat gave him a freebooterish appearance, which went far to reconcile her to him.  She was really a pretty woman—­much handsomer than some of the shadowy beauties Patching was wont to put on canvas—­and she made him a good and faithful wife—­and cooked better dinners for him, at a small expense, than he had ever eaten before—­and sent him out into the world clean and tidy every morning.  Patching affected to be ashamed of his wife, and snubbed her sometimes in the presence of other people.  But everybody who knew the couple, saw that he had the best of the bargain.  Mrs. Patching still took her favorite weekly, and cried over the stories as copiously as ever.

Mrs. Crull continued to be the dearest and best friend of Pet and Mrs. Overtop; and little Helen and little Fayette would never know the great debt of gratitude that they owed to that excellent lady.  Whenever she called on Mrs. Overtop, she always began to be extremely circumspect in her pronunciation and grammar, from force of habit; but soon relapsed into those old errors which, happily, were of the head, and not of the heart.  Mrs. Crull made no mistakes in her affections.  She was in mourning for Mr. Crull, and truly vowed that she would never marry again.

Mrs. Slapman had ceased to live on the block.  Mr. Slapman had basely defeated the beneficent decree of the law, by turning his property into ready cash, and sailing for Europe.  This deprived Mrs. S. of her alimony the second year after their separation, and compelled her to give up housekeeping, and the pursuit of TRUTH, in New York.  She is now living among a small colony of Jigbees, in an obscure village of Connecticut, the pride of her family, the envy of the neighbors, and the idol of two local poets and of the professor of a High School in an adjoining town, who has learned her history, and is now patiently waiting for Slapman to die before offering her his hand in marriage.