"Yes, I daresay!" sneers the lady, adding in a tone of irritation: "I had a silk dress completely spoilt the last time I tried one of those elegant vehicles, by a man in dirty boots passing by me to get to his place. Now, seriously, Charles, can you, who are so good an accountant, maintain that it is economical to sacrifice a dress worth five guineas, to save a pair of boots worth fifteen shillings, to say nothing of my losing a sovereign between the ill-joined boards ?"

"To be sure not, my dear," said Mr. Atkins, who was deep in his newspaper, after a late dinner.

There he would have let the matter drop; but his better-half had no notion of any such thing, and observed in an off-hand tone: "It is easy to say 'to be sure not,' but what can one do, when one has no carriage?"

"Take a cab," came out oracularly, after a certain delay, from the depths of the double sheet.

“Yes—a cab with a broken window, so as to catch a cold that will entail a doctor's bill heavy enough to have lasted me for six month's pinmoney! Besides, they say cabs carry patients to the hospital; now, would you have me risk dying of the typhus fever, Mr. Atkins?"

"No! why should I?" said Charles, staring in astonishment, for he had not closely followed the thread of her argument, adding with the sincere wish of atoning for his want of attention : "Here's an advertisement about a disinfecting fluid, that is to be sold at the oil shops-perhaps that would meet the emergency?"

"Pshaw!" said his wife, falling back upon her crochet, as she perceived it was no use pushing matters any further that day.

But she has not given up her point. By dint of seeking, she finds a case that bears upon the grievance, viz., an inquest on a person who died of the small-pox, caught from the cushions of a cab. She shows it to her husband exultingly, we were going to say-observing, "Cabs are dangerous conveyances!"

"And walking is more healthy," he chimed in.

"But not for persons of weak constitutions, like myself."

'My dear, you can take a fly whenever you please. Flys never convey hospital patients."

"The driver's gloves always look soiled," objected the lady; "besides, you can never deceive anybody into the belief it is your own brougham.”

"I didn't say you could," retorted Charles, looking up from his paper; "but you were dilating on the danger of cabs, and I merely suggested how to avoid them."

Mrs. Atkins quickly perceived she had nearly let the cat out of the bag, and altered her tactics by turning to some other subject. But of course she resumed her favourite topic at no distant period. It was like those cut-and-come-again grievances that Members of Parliament serve up session after session, when the weather is too sultry and the House too lazy to attend to real business. Mrs. Atkins was determined to get the

carriage bill to pass, if steady perseverance could effect it. Another time she told her husband that she had followed his advice and taken a fly to pay a round of visits. Then she proceeded to work upon this tema, like composers of variations; only with this difference, that while they seek to make the subject attractive, she endeavoured to show up all its worst features. She hated above everything to hold any tenure at so much an hour. She declared it spoilt all her pleasure to be reckoning up whether she should encroach upon another hour or not. She felt so mean while making such calculations! Those who kept their own carriages know none of these annoyances !

"No-but their coachman sell their corn and starve their horses," observed Mr. Atkins.

"Still, it is very delightful to drive about as long as you like, and not to have to think about hours and half hours," sighed the lady; "and I daresay it is cheaper in the end, for I missed I don't know how many small parcels I put into the coach pocket, and one of them contained several yards of Chantilly lace."

"You must inform the master of the livery stables," said the husband, "and if he does not offer some compensation, I shall speak to my solicitor."

"Oh," cried the lady incautiously, "but I'm sure it is not the coachman, nor the livery stable people, for I missed the parcels in the middle of the day. It must have been some thief who took it out of the fly, while I was in a shop, and the coachman's attention engaged elsewhere."

Mrs.

"If so," said Mr. Atkin's, laughing, "you only prove that a private carriage would offer no better guarantee against pickpockets. Atkin bit her lip at being again caught at fault; still she was not to be daunted.

The daily drop of water wears away the stone in the long run, as the wisdom of nations has never ceased repeating, since the world was peopled-and by dint of instilling into her dear Charles's ear (for only half his attention was given to what she said, the other half being devoted to his newspaper) that a carriage was the first necessity of life, he began at length to think there must be some truth in such oft repeated an assertion. Besides, owing to the dreamy semi-attention with which he listened, there was this advantage gained, that her frequently illogical arguments were lost sight of, while the more plausible ones floated to the surface of his memory. Thus, one favourite argument was that, if she had a carriage, she would no longer require an expensive journey out of town every season, as she could take the most delightful drives in the environs of London, which would answer the purpose quite as well-nay, better still, as she would not have to leave her "dear hubby," or to subject him to the annoyance of continually coming to and fro by the railway, supposing she chose a watering-place within a reasonable distance.

The result of her strenuous efforts were at last made apparent by the merchant's summing up the debates in these delightful words: "Well, Fan, you shall have your carriage."

Accordingly a most elegant carriage was purchased. It had been built for a nobleman's chère amie, as the coach-builder told Mr. Atkins confidentially, but had been returned upon his hands, owing either to some caprice or some quarrel. The lining of pale amber brocade was of the most costly description. The vehicle having been used only twice at most, as the maker declared, was, he maintained, quite as good as new, though he let it go-at "so very low a figure"-which "low figure" was of course a mere figure of speech.

In order to launch the new purchase with some degree of éclat, Mr. Atkins determined to take a holiday, and go to the races. He joined a set of friends, who had their hired vehicles, and as he promised luncheon for them all, he was of course the great man of the party. A number of glasses of champagne were emptied to the health- -we were going to say, of the new carriage-we mean to its owners, and long might they enjoy it, and so forth! Atkins felt considerably elated, and almost tearfully expressed his obligation to his dear wife for showing him the right road to happiness, which the bystanders mistook for a demonstration of conjugal affection, while he alluded to her teazing him into keeping a carriage. The only little drawback that ruffled him was, that a number of fashionable popinjays stared impertinently at his wife, as they passed by. They looked and smiled and nodded in a way he did not like, and which was not by any means respectful to the carriage! Mrs. Atkins simpered and blushed, and began to entertain the pleasant conviction that she was looking uncommonly well that morning. Altogether the day passed pleasantly, and his friends thought Atkins had done things handsomely, and the copious libations of champagne extinguished whatever sparks of jealousy his new carriage would otherwise have kindled in their bosoms.

Next morning at breakfast, the man servant inquired with solemn importance, for what hour his mistress wished the carriage to be ordered. Jeames looked three inches taller than the day before. Wholly unpre pared for the question, Mrs. Atkins hesitated, coloured a trifle, and said at random "one o'clock." Jeames fidgetted about the room, and wiped the sideboard, and then ventured to ask whether his "missus" would lunch at twelve? She had forgotten luncheon, but quickly answered: "Say two o'clock for the carriage."

lips!

The carriage! Those two words seemed like so much sugar upon

her

Presently, however, Jeames came back rather ruefully, with a message from the coachman, stating that the carriage was so dirty owing to the dusty roads, and to some "gents as were larking" having frolicsomely pelted it with eggs, and other remnants of a feast, on their return home, that he was fraid it could not be ready for two o'clock. Moreover, one

of the pannels had been "scratched most awful," Jeames added, and it was probable the coach-painter would have to be put in requisition.

The new owner of the carriage looked rather annoyed. Instead of going off to his counting-house, to make up for the time lost during yesterday's holiday, he had to go to the stables, where he relieved himself by scolding the coachman, who was not in fault. The coachman let him work off his passion like so much steam, and then said quietly, that the carriage must go to the coachmaker's, to which his master assented, and then hurried away to the city, wishing the carriage, the races, and the frolicsome individuals who had made free with his property, all severally at Jericho.

In a few days the new plaything was restored to its owners, and Mrs. Atkins drove out for a round of visits to exhibit her new acquisition to her friends and their servants. The next day she paid more distant visits, and the day after, went shopping-and all this was very pleasant. On the morrow of the third day, however, in reply to Jeames's daily query, she said she did not require the carriage.

"Why not take a turn in the park?" said her husband; “such spirited horses as ours require frequent exercise."

So because they were spirited, his wife must take exercise, in order to exercise them. But the words "our horses" had still all the charm of novelty, and Fanny laughingly agreed that she would go.

In the park she was again stared at, just like at the races, by the male equestrians and pedestrians too-while the female equestrians tossed their heads somewhat disdainfully as they passed her, though evidently peeping at her stealthily, when they thought themselves unobserved. Mrs. Atkins fancied her carriage excited envy, and her fair face a still larger share of admiration. This conduct was repeated

every time she drove through Rotten Row, till she began to think the gentlemen rather obtrusive in their admiration, and the ladies most impertinently haughty. For though they might be of high birth, still "Mr. Atkins paid his way, and that was more than many of their husbands did."

At last she complained to Charles, and though he declared it was all her fancy, he was at last persuaded to come home an hour earlier, and take a drive through the park with her. But however inclined to be credulous, the merchant could not help seeing that neither his wife nor his equipage met with the respect he considered they were entitled to. Presently he was hailed by a gentleman of his acquaintance who moved in a more fashionable sphere than himself, and seeing him rein in his horse as if desirous of saying a word to him, Mr. Atkins desired the coachman to stop. The gentleman asked a business question of the husband, as if to account for detaining the wife, and then, without waiting for the reply, whispered: "Get that lining changed, Atkins; it is not fit for your wife."

"Not fit? Why, she thinks it charming;" and he was going to appeal

to Mrs. Atkins to confirm what he said, when his adviser added: “Not fit she should ride in the carriage in which Anonyma paraded about only two months ago."

And the gentleman bowed and rode on.

There was the explanation of the "nods and becks and wreathed smiles" of the men, and the contemptuous looks of the women! Atkins wiped the perspiration from his brow, and bid his coachman drive home in double quick time.

"Already?" said his wife.

"We must have this confounded lining altered," said Atkins, who forthwith expounded the tremendous error they had fallen into.

Fanny was rather mortified to think it was not her good looks that had caused all the commotion on the race-course and in the park, but simply the suspicion that she was that which she was not. Mr. Atkins rated the coachmaker soundly, when the latter reminded him he had stated the case as it was, on selling the carriage, adding, by way comment, that those sort of articles were rather sought after than not.

of

The carriage was now re-lined, and as Fanny was a blonde, she was consoled for the loss of the amber brocade by the pale blue lining substituted for it. People ceased gazing and whispering, and she could drive all over London without exciting any notice.

Again she resumed the horse-in-a-mill existence of heretofore, and worked the carriage most diligently. And now the slavery began in good earnest. When you have a carriage, you must ride in it, unless you wish your coachman to contract idle habits, to say nothing of the horses. Only not having increased her acquaintance in proportion to this demand for perpetual motion, Mrs. Atkins need have paid three visits to one from each of those friends who had no carriages themselves. This would have been against all etiquette, and therefore could not be done. Neither can one be continually shopping short of possessing the wealth of a ROTHSCHILD ; so that, taking a drive, formed, after all, the staple occupation of her existence. It was harassing and wearisome, nay, often provoking, to leave her elegant drawing-room-though, on the other hand, it was a pleasant reflection that the invariable answer to all visitors who called during her absence, would be, "Missus has gone out in the carriage; "-for servants, being generally as proud of the carriage as their mistress, are sure to volunteer this piece of intelligence, even if not instructed to do so.

Another remark I have made relative to the slaves of the carriage, is, that however weary of their Sisyphus-like round of drudgery, it never occurs to them to cast off the burden for a few hours by lending their vehicle to a friend who has none of his or her own. If ever they chance to lend it, be sure it is to those who have three or four carriages and plenty of horses at their disposal. Neither do your thorough-faced slaves of the carriage make use of it themselves to go to theatres or parties, when the comfort of one's own carriage is most valuable, from the apprehension of some fancied injuries that may be sustained either by the horses or the