Page:Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Volume 2.djvu/240

222 climbing, and adoring, it is certain there wasn't a happier spinster in this "Piljin Projess of a wale," than the one who partook of "weal pie" in memory of Sam Weller and drank "a modest quencher" to the health of Dick Swiveller at the end of that delightful Dickens day.

Much might be written about the domestic pleasures of English people, but as the compiler of this interesting work believes in the sacredness of private life, and has a holy horror of the dreadful people who outrage hospitality by basely reporting all they have seen and heard, she will practise what she preaches, and firmly resist the temptation to describe the delights of country strolls with poets, cosey five-o'clock teas in famous drawing-rooms, and interviews with persons whose names are household words.

This virtuous reticence leaves the best untold, and brings the story of two of our travellers to a speedy end. Matilda decided to remain and study art, spending her days copying Turner at the National Gallery, and her evenings in the society of the eight agreeable gentlemen who adorned the house where she abode.