“Your lordship’s frail, unworthy,
“But faithful and honored servant,
“Solomon M’Slime.”

“P.S.—­With respect to your jocose and ironical postscript, may I again take the liberty of throwing in a word in season.  If your lordship could so far assume a proper Christian seriousness of character, as to render the act of kindness and protection on your part such as might confer a competent independence upon a female of religious dispositions, I doubt not, should your lordship’s charity continue unabated on your arrival here, that some such desirable opportunity might offer, as that of rescuing a comely but desolate maiden from distress.

“There is, indeed, a man here living on your lordship’s property, who has a daughter endowed with a large portion of that vain gift called beauty.  Her father and family are people of bad principle, without conscience or honesty, and, withal, utterly destitute of religion—­not but that they carry themselves very plausibly to the world.  Among such people, my Lord, it is not possible that this engaging damsel, who is now so youthful and innocent, could resist the evil influence of the principles that prevail in her family.  Indeed, her abiding among them cannot be for her welfare in any sense.

“I have the honor, &c.”

Valentine M’Clutchy, Esq., to Solomon M’Slime.

“My dear M’Slime: 

“As it is beyond any doubt, that in the fair discharge of our duty, you and I can be mutually serviceable to each other; and as it is equally evident that it is our interest, and what is more, the interest of Lord Cumber, that we should be so, I therefore think it right to observe, that in all transactions between us, each should treat the other with the most perfect confidence.  For this reason, I beg to assure you, once for all, that in any proceeding that may appear harsh towards any of his lordship’s tenantry, I am and shall be actuated by no other feeling, than a strong, conscientious sense of my duty to him.  This is, was, and will bo the principle of my whole life.  And you know very well, my dear M’Slime, that if I were less devoted to those interests than I am, my popularity would be greater among the tenantry.  Indeed, few men have a right to know this better than yourself, inasmuch as you stand in precisely the same beloved relation to them that I do.

“Our excellent friend Hickman is a very worthy man and exceedingly well meaning.  Don’t you think so?  Oh, I am sure you do.  Yet I know not how it happened that he left out of his system of agency some of the most valuable rights and privileges of the landlord.  These I will mention to you when I see you, and when I have more time.  I consequently must say, that in attempting to revive these rights, even while I was deputy-agent, the unjust odium that is falling upon me already, even while I had scarce time to move in them, ought rather to be—­that is morally speaking—­visited upon him who allowed them to lapse.  Now that the fine old