Seraphina Popps was the daughter of Mr. Hezekiah Popps, a highly
respectable pawnbroker, residing in ---- Street, Bloomsbury. Being an only
child, from her earliest infancy she wanted for 0, as everything had been
made ready to her [Symbol: hand hand].
She grew up as most little girls do, who live long enough, and became the
universal ![1] of all who knew her, for
"None but herself could be her ||."[2]
Amongst the most devoted of her admirers was Julian Fitzorphandale.
Seraphina was not insensible to the worth of Julian Fitzorphandale; and
when she received from him a letter, asking permission to visit her, she
felt some difficulty in replying to his ?[3]; for, at this very critical
.[4], an unamiable young man, named Augustus St. Tomkins, who possessed
considerable £. _s._ _d._ had become a suitor for her [Symbol: hand]. She
loved Fitzorphandale +[5] St. Tomkins, but the former was [Symbol: empty]
of money; and Seraphina, though sensitive to an extreme, was fully aware
that a competency was a very comfortable "appendix."
She seized her pen, but found that her mind was all 6's and 7's. She spelt
Fitzorphandale, P-h-i-t-z; and though she commenced ¶[6] after ¶, she never
could come to a "finis." She upbraided her unlucky * *, either for making
Fitzorphandale so poor, or St. Tomkins so ugly, which he really was. In
this dilemma we must leave her at present.
Although Augustus St. Tomkins was a [Symbol: Freemason][7], he did not
possess the universal benevolence which that ancient order inculcates; but
revolving in his mind the probable reasons for Seraphina's hesitation, he
came to this conclusion: she either loved him -[8] somebody else, or she
did not love him at all. This conviction only X[9] his worst feelings, and
he resolved that no [Symbol: scruple scruple][10] of conscience should
stand between him and his desires.
On the following day, Fitzorphandale had invited Seraphina to a pic-nic
party. He had opened the &[11] placed some boiled beef and ^^[12] on the
verdant grass, when Seraphina exclaimed, in the mildest ``´´[13], "I like
it well done, Fitzorphandale!"
As Julian proceeded to supply his beloved one with a §[14]
of the provender, St. Tomkins stood before them with a [Symbol: dagger][15]
in his [Symbol: hand].
Want of space compels us to leave the conclusion of this interesting
romance to the imagination of the reader, and to those ingenious
playwrights who so liberally supply our most popular authors with
gratuitous catastrophes.