was not so great.  Her stature was of the middle height, and she was of one breadth from the shoulders to the heels.  She was dressed in a flaming scarlet satin gown, with swan’s-down round the top, as also at the arms, and two flounces of the same material round the bottom.  Her turban was of green velvet, with a gold fringe, terminating in a bunch over the left side, while a bird-of-paradise inclined towards the right.  Across her forehead she wore a gold band, with a many-coloured glass butterfly (a present from James Green), and her neck, arms, waist (at least what ought to have been her waist) were hung round and studded with mosaic-gold chains, brooches, rings, buttons, bracelets, etc., looking for all the world like a portable pawnbroker’s shop, or the lump of beef that Sinbad the sailor threw into the Valley of Diamonds.  In the right of a gold band round her middle, was an immense gold watch, with a bunch of mosaic seals appended to a massive chain of the same material; and a large miniature of Mr. Jorrocks when he was a young man, with his hair stiffly curled, occupied a place on her left side.  On her right arm dangled a green velvet bag with a gold cord, out of which one of Mr. Jorrocks’s silk handkerchiefs protruded, while a crumpled, yellowish-white cambric one, with a lace fringe, lay at her side.

On an hour-glass stool, a little behind Mrs. Jorrocks, sat her niece Belinda (Joe Jorrocks’s eldest daughter), a nice laughing pretty girl of sixteen, with languishing blue eyes, brown hair, a nose of the “turn-up” order, beautiful mouth and teeth, a very fair complexion, and a gracefully moulded figure.  She had just left one of the finishing and polishing seminaries in the neighbourhood of Bromley, where, for two hundred a year and upwards, all the teasing accomplishments of life are taught, and Mrs. Jorrocks, in her own mind, had already appropriated her to James Green, while Mr. Jorrocks, on the other hand, had assigned her to Stubbs.  Belinda’s dress was simplicity itself; her silken hair hung in shining tresses down her smiling face, confined by a plain tortoiseshell comb behind, and a narrow pink velvet band before.  Round her swan-like neck was a plain white cornelian necklace; and her well-washed white muslin frock, confined by a pink sash, flowing behind in a bow, met in simple folds across her swelling bosom.  Black sandal shoes confined her fairy feet, and with French cotton stockings, completed her toilette.  Belinda, though young, was a celebrated eastern beauty, and there was not a butcher’s boy in Whitechapel, from Michael Scales downwards, but what eyed her with delight as she passed along from Shoreditch on her daily walk.

The presentations having been effected, and the heat of the day, the excellence of the house, the cleanliness of Great Coram Street—­the usual topics, in short, when people know nothing of each other—­having been discussed, our party scattered themselves about the room to await the pleasing announcement of dinner.  Mr. Jorrocks, of course, was in attendance upon Nimrod, while Mr. Stubbs made love to Belinda behind Mrs. Jorrocks.