though it is not humanly possible to unbend oneself upon the thorny bosoms of chairs and couches severely upholstered with the prickling hairs of an extinct horse.
Still, as I assured Miss Wee-Wee, she is the happy owner of a magical knack to transform, by her sheer apparition, the humblest hovel into the first-class family residence with every modern improvement.
With the said Miss I continue on terms of hand and gloveship, with mutual harmless jokes, which would perhaps be as caviare on toast to a general, though I shall venture to recount some examples.
A certain local young laird, of incredible bashfulness and bucolical appearance, is a frequent visitor at the manse, and the fervent admirer of Miss Wee-Wee, who cannot endure the tedium of his society, and is constantly endeavouring to escape therefrom.
Now his name is Mr Crum, and I have frequently entertained her in private by play upon the word, alluding to him as "Mister Crust," "Mister Oatcake," or "the Scotch Bun," and the like; but he informed me that he preferred to be addressed as "Balbannock," and upon my inquiring his reasons for selecting such an alias, he answered that it was because he inhabited a house of that name.
Whereupon I facetiously requested that he would address myself in future as "Mister
