We were ushered into Mr. Sawley’s drawing-room.  Round the walls, and at considerable distances from each other, were seated about a dozen characters, male and female, all of them dressed in sable, and wearing countenances of woe.  Sawley advanced, and wrung me by the hand with so piteous an expression of visage that I could not help thinking some awful catastrophe had just befallen his family.

“You are welcome, Mr. Dunshunner—­welcome to my humble tabernacle.  Let me present you to Mrs. Sawley”—­and a lady, who seemed to have bathed in the Yellow Sea, rose from her seat, and favoured me with a profound curtsey.

“My daughter—­Miss Selina Sawley.”

I felt in my brain the scorching glance of the two darkest eyes it ever was my fortune to behold, as the beauteous Selina looked up from the perusal of her handkerchief hem.  It was a pity that the other features were not corresponding; for the nose was flat, and the mouth of such dimensions that a harlequin might have jumped down it with impunity; but the eyes were splendid.

In obedience to a sign from the hostess, I sank into a chair beside Selina; and, not knowing exactly what to say, hazarded some observation about the weather.

“Yes, it is indeed a suggestive season.  How deeply, Mr. Dunshunner, we ought to feel the pensive progress of autumn toward a soft and premature decay!  I always think, about this time of the year, that nature is falling into a consumption!”

“To be sure, ma’am,” said I, rather taken aback by this style of colloquy, “the trees are looking devilishly hectic.”

“Ah, you have remarked that too!  Strange!  It was but yesterday that I was wandering through Kelvin Grove, and as the phantom breeze brought down the withered foliage from the spray, I thought how probable it was that they might ere long rustle over young and glowing hearts deposited prematurely in the tomb!”

This, which struck me as a very passable imitation of Dickens’s pathetic writings, was a poser.  In default of language, I looked Miss Sawley straight in the face, and attempted a substitute for a sigh.  I was rewarded with a tender glance.

“Ah,” said she, “I see you are a congenial spirit!  How delightful, and yet how rare, it is to meet with any one who thinks in unison with yourself!  Do you ever walk in the Necropolis, Mr. Dunshunner?  It is my favourite haunt of a morning.  There we can wean ourselves, as it were, from life, and beneath the melancholy yew and cypress, anticipate the setting star.  How often there have I seen the procession—­the funeral of some very, very little child—­”

“Selina, my love,” said Mrs. Sawley, “have the kindness to ring for the cookies.”

I, as in duty bound, started up to save the fair enthusiast the trouble, and was not sorry to observe my seat immediately occupied by a very cadaverous gentleman, who was evidently jealous of the progress I was rapidly making.  Sawley, with an air of great mystery, informed me that this was a Mr. Dalgleish of Raxmathrapple, the representative of an ancient Scottish family who claimed an important heritable office.  The name, I thought, was familiar to me, but there was something in the appearance of Mr. Dalgleish which, notwithstanding the smiles of Miss Selina, rendered a rivalship in that quarter utterly out of the question.