Punch (13.1847)

TT is now six years and a half ago since Punch gave unexpected audience to a Wood Nymph of very genteel exterior. Punch
was then a way-farer in highways, and alleys, and bye-courts ; and, caring not to enter upon the distracting duties of house-
keeping, he accommodated the greatness that, by the way, he even then had strange, mysterious inkling of, to one small clean
garret ; white-washed with a fine regard for the picturesque. Perhaps, like Ariel, when crammed into the pine, Punch was
compelled by Circumstance—the " blue-eyed hag "—to limit himself to so small an abiding-place. We say, perhaps ; leaving
the doubt to be enlarged upon by the gossips Envy and Detraction.

A July sun beamed through the diamond casement, lighting up the Avhitewash with the splendours of the dawn—an
intermixture of the glories of crimson and golden yellow. Punch was in bed, with his eye upon a favourite patch in his many-
pattern quilt; a patch that reminded him of a gown filled with many sweet associations—Punch was in bed, now with his