's side of the question, and of his way of
thinking, would appear to be his cousin more or less. From my Lord Boodle,
through the Duke of Foodle, down to Noodle, Sir Leicester, like a glorious
spider, stretches his threads of relationship. But while he is stately in the
cousinship of the Everybodys, he is a kind and generous man, according to his
dignified way, in the cousin-ship of the Nobodys; and at the present time, in
despite of the damp, he stays out the visit of several such cousins at Chesney
Wold, with the constancy of a martyr.
    Of these, foremost in the front rank stands Volumnia Dedlock, a young lady
(of sixty), who is doubly highly related; having the honour to be a poor
relation, by the mother's side, to another great family. Miss Volumnia,
displaying in early life a pretty talent for cutting ornaments out of coloured
paper, and also for singing to the guitar in the Spanish tongue, and propounding
French conundrums in country houses, passed the twenty years of her existence
between twenty and forty in a sufficiently agreeable manner. Lapsing then out of
date, and being considered to bore mankind by her vocal performances in the
Spanish language, she retired to Bath; where she lives slenderly on an annual
present from Sir Leicester, and whence she makes occasional resurrections in the
country houses of her cousins. She has an extensive acquaintance at Bath among
appalling old gentlemen with thin legs and nankeen trousers, and is of high
standing in that dreary city. But she is a little dreaded elsewhere, in
consequence of an indiscreet profusion in the article of rouge, and persistency
in an obsolete pearl necklace like a rosary of little bird's-eggs.
    In any country in a wholesome state, Volumnia would be a clear case for the
pension list. Efforts have been made to get her on it; and when William Buffy
came in, it was fully expected that her name would be put down for a couple of
hundred a-year. But William Buffy somehow discovered, contrary to all
expectation, that these were not the times when it could be done; and this was
the first clear indication Sir Leicester Dedlock had conveyed to him, that the
country was going to pieces.
    There is likewise the Honourable Bob Stables, who can make warm mashes with
the skill of a veterinary surgeon, and is a better shot than most gamekeepers.
He has been for some time particularly desirous to serve his country in a post
of good emoluments, unaccompanied by any trouble or responsibility. In a