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100 putting down the carriage and pair, and reducing the staff of servants, had succeeded eventually in bringing things round.

The habit of taking snuff was now in rapid decline. I suppose my ancestor, William Drake Gould, was a snuff-taker, as we possess his tortoise-shell snuff-box, with inserted in the lid on the inside the miniature of the Young Pretender, and when he took a pinch, he raised his thumb and forefinger to his head to salute it.

There must have been a vein of loyalty in the Lew branch of the family, as we possess also the gold ring of Henry Gould, who died in 1636, set with an enamel portrait of Charles I. But he died previous to the Great Rebellion; Henry Gould, born in 1637, planted the numerous Scottish pines about the house and was on very bad terms with the rector, John Truscott, who was a stout Whig and very loyal to William of Orange; and he it was who planted the lime avenue to the church porch.

There was an old gentleman who came to balls at Lifton in a blue swallow-tail coat and brass or gold buttons, and knee-breeches, who was an inveterate snuff-taker. My uncle, Thomas George Bond, and his snuff-box were inseparable, but snuff-taking had almost gone out of fashion with the ladies, although my grand-aunt, Mrs. Jackson, born in 1769, whom I well remember, was credited with taking a pinch in private. My grandfather took snuff, but not immoderately.

At one time snuff-taking among the ladies was quite fashionable. Queen Charlotte had a train of snuff laid on her bare arm and ran her nose along it sniffing it up from one end to the other.

In the Spectator for April 4, 1712, is a letter complaining of the prevalence of snuff-taking among the ladies.

I presume it was my love of mischief that induced me to put some finely cut horse-hair into my grand-aunt Jackson's snuff-box, which produced a hurricane of sneezing, that she left me not one penny by her will.

I wonder whether the habit of women smoking will go out as did snuff-taking. If they were aware how their breath smells after a cigarette and how discoloured become their teeth, perhaps they would be more chary of smoking.

Not very long ago an acquaintance got engaged to a pretty young lady, who, however, one evening after dinner was rash