regal beauty. Her person, indeed, and figure would have tended towards such a standard; but all was counteracted and thrown back into the mould of sweet natural womanhood, by the cherubic beauty of her features. These it was—these features, so purely child-like—that reconciled me in a moment of time to great-grandmotherhood. The stories about Ninon de l'Enclos are French fables-speaking plainly, are falsehoods; - and sorry I am that a nation so amiable as the French should habitually disregard truth, when coming into collision with their love for the extravagant. But, if anything could reconcile me to these monstrous old fibs about Ninon at 90, it would be the remembrance of this English enchantress on the high road to 70. Guess, reader, what she must have been at 28 to 32, when she became the widow of the Gerenian horseman, Harvey. How bewitching she must have looked in her widow's caps! So had once thought Colonel Watson, who happened to be in England at that period; and to the charming widow this man of war propounded his hand in marriage. This hand-this martial hand-for reason inexplicable to me, Mrs Harvey declined; and the Colonel bounced off in a rage to Bengal. There were others who saw young Mrs Harvey as well as Colonel Watson. And amongst them was an ancient German gentleman, to what century belonging I do not know, who had every possible bad quality known to European experience, and a solitary good one, viz., eight hundred thousand pounds sterling. The man's name was Schreiber. Schreiber was an aggregate resulting from the conflux of all conceivable bad qualities. That was the elementary base of Schreiber; and the superstructure, or Corinthian decoration of his frontispiece, was, that Schreiber cultivated one sole science, viz., the science of taking snuff. Here

were two separate objects for contemplation: one, bright as Aurora that radiant Koh-i-noor, or mountain of light -the eight hundred thousand pounds; the other, sad, fuscous, begrimed with the snuff of ages, viz., the most ancient Schreiber. Ah! if they could have been divided— these twin yoke-fellows-and that ladies might have the privilege of choosing between them! For the moment there was no prudent course open to Mrs Harvey, but that of marrying Schreiber (which she did, and survived); and subsequently, when the state of the market became favourable to such "conversions" of stock, then the new Mrs Schreiber parted from Schreiber, and disposed of her interest in Schreiber at a settled rate in 3 per cent. consols and terminable annuities-for every coupon of Schreiber receiving a bonus of so many thousand pounds, paid down according to the rate agreed on by the lawyers of the two parties; or, strictly speaking, quarrelled on between the adverse factions; for agreement it was hard to effect upon any point. The deadly fear, which had been breathed into him by Mrs Schreiber's scale of expenditure in a Park Lane House, proved her most salutary ally. Coerced by this horrid vision, Schreiber consented (which else he never would have done) to grant her an allowance, for life, of about two thousand per annum. Could that be reckoned an anodyne for the torment connected with a course of Schreiber? I pretend to no opinion.

Such were the facts: and exactly at this point in her career had Mrs Schreiber arrived, when, once more, Colonel Watson and General Smith were visiting England, and for the last time on the errand of settling permanently some suitable establishment for their two infant daughters. The superintendence of this they desired to devolve upon some lady, qualified by her manners and her connections for

introducing the young ladies, when old enough, into general society. Mrs Schreiber was the very person required. Intellectually she had no great pretensions; but these she did not need: her character was irreproachable, her manners were polished, and her own income placed her far above all mercenary temptations. She had not thought fit to accept the station of Colonel Watson's wife, but some unavowed feeling prompted her to undertake with enthusiasm the duties of a mother to the Colonel's daughter. Chiefly on Miss Watson's account it was at first that she extended her maternal cares to General Smith's daughter; but very soon so sweet and winning was the disposition of Miss Smith, that Mrs Schreiber apparently loved her the best.

Both, however, appeared, under a combination of circumstances too singularly romantic to fail of creating an interest that was universal. Both were solitary children, unchallenged by any relatives. Neither had ever known what it was to taste of love, paternal or maternal. Their mothers had been long dead-not consciously seen by either; and their fathers, not surviving their last departure from home long enough to see them again, died before returning from India. What a world of desolation seemed to exist for them! How silent was every hall into which, by natural right, they should have had entrance. Several people, kind, cordial people, men and women, were scattered over England, that, during their days of infancy, would have delighted to receive them; but, by some fatality, when they reached their 15th year, and might have been deemed old enough to undertake visits, all of these · paternal friends, except two, had died; nor had they, by that time, any relatives at all that remained alive, or were eligible as associates. Strange, indeed, was the contrast

between the silent past of their lives and that populous future to which their large fortunes would probably introduce them. Throw open a door in the rear that should lay bare the long vista of chambers through which their childhood might symbolically be represented as having travelled, --what silence!-what solemn solitude! Open a door in advance that should do the same figurative office for the future, suddenly what a jubilation! what a tumult of festal greetings!

But the succeeding stages of life did not, perhaps, in either case fully correspond to the early promise. Rank and station the two young ladies attained; but rank and station do not always throw people upon prominent stages of action or display. Many a family, possessing both rank and wealth, and not undistinguished possibly by natural endowments of an order fitted for brilliant popularity, never emerge from obscurity, or not into any splendour that can be called national; sometimes, perhaps, from a temper unfitted for worthy struggles in the head of the house; possibly from a haughty, possibly a dignified disdain of popular arts, hatred of petty rhetoric, petty sycophantic courtships, petty canvassing tricks; or again, in many cases, because accidents of ill luck have intercepted the fair proportion of success due to the merits of the person; whence, oftentimes, a hasty self-surrender to impulses of permanent disgust. But, more frequently than any other cause, I fancy that impatience of the long struggle required for any distinguished success interferes to thin the ranks of competitors for the prizes of public ambition. Perseverance is soon refrigerated in those who fall back under any result, defeated or not defeated, upon splendid mansions and luxuries of every kind, already far beyond their needs or their wishes. The soldier described by the

Roman satirist as one who had lost his purse, was likely enough, under the desperation of his misfortune, to see nothing formidable in any obstacle that crossed his path towards another supplementary purse; whilst the very same obstacle might reasonably alarm one who, in retreating, fell back under the battlements of twenty thousand per annum. In the present case, there was nothing at all to move wonder in the final result under so continual a siege of temptation from the seductions of voluptuous ease; the only wonder is, that one of the young ladies, viz., Miss Watson, whose mind was masculine, and in some directions aspiring, should so readily have acquiesced in a result which she might have anticipated from the beginning.

Happy was the childhood, happy the early dawn of womanhood, which these two young ladies passed under the guardianship of Mrs Schreiber. Education in those days was not the austere old lady that she is now. At least, in the case of young ladies, her exactions were merciful and considerate. If Miss Smith sang pretty well, and Miss Watson very well, and with the power of singing difficult part music at sight-they did so for the same reason that the lark sings, and chiefly under the same gentle tuitionthat of nature, glad almighty nature, breathing inspiration from her Delphic tripod of happiness, and health, and hope. Mrs Schreiber pretended to no intellectual gifts whatever, and yet, practically, she was wiser than many who have the greatest. First of all other tasks which she imposed upon her wards, was that of daily exercise, and exercise carried to excess. She insisted upon four hours' exercise daily; and, as young ladies walk fast, that would have yielded, at the rate of 3 miles per hour, 13+ miles. But only 2 hours were given to walking;