The Reverend Septimus took off his spectacles, that he might see
her face, as he exclaimed:

'Why, what should he write in?'

'Bless me, bless me, Sept,' returned the old lady, 'you don't see
the context! Give it back to me, my dear.'

Glad to get his spectacles off (for they always made his eyes
water), her son obeyed: murmuring that his sight for reading
manuscript got worse and worse daily.

'"I write,"' his mother went on, reading very perspicuously and
precisely, '"from the chair, to which I shall probably be confined
for some hours."'

Septimus looked at the row of chairs against the wall, with a half-
protesting and half-appealing countenance.

'"We have,"' the old lady read on with a little extra emphasis, '"a
meeting of our Convened Chief Composite Committee of Central and
District Philanthropists, at our Head Haven as above; and it is
their unanimous pleasure that I take the chair."'

Septimus breathed more freely, and muttered: 'O! if he comes to
THAT, let him,'

'"Not to lose a day's post, I take the opportunity of a long report
being read, denouncing a public miscreant--"'