shall relapse, for I can hardly help going at it fresh again when I think of his tiny, slender little figure. Why don't you send him in the country, to get a little flesh on his little bones?"
Mrs. Webb reddened, but a look at the presents, as they lay on the floor, kept her from replying; and finding him tolerably grave, she thought it better for her husband to get accustomed to the coarse ways of her uncle at once. She, therefore, went to him to prepare the way for a better understanding. Mr. Webb, however, felt no willingness to be under obligations to so vulgar a mind; but seeing his wife's distress, in consequence of his refusal to go into the room, and having, likewise, a point to gain with her, he at length resolved to bear with the folly of the old man, without showing his sense of the indignity.
It was some time before he made his appearance. Meantime Mrs. Webb had been coaxing her uncle to behave with decency before her husband. "You can but turn your back," said she, "if you think you cannot refrain from laughing; but if you knew how kind he is to me, and how much every body respects him, you would not mind his size. You have no idea what an excellent scholar he is. It is really cruel, my dear uncle, to make game of what, by your mirth, you consider as a ludicrous affliction—a thing which we neither of us have been instrumental in doing; and which we would alter if we could. Do, dear sir, let him see what you really are—a kind and affectionate man. I will give my husband a chair the moment he comes in; he does not look so small when he sits."
This last unlucky observation undid all that her previous conversation had effected; and when Mr. Webb entered, the old man was in a roar of laughter; and only one glance at the unfortunate man,
