examined it! She did not bore one with the result of her examination. Though entertaining very decided opinions upon almost every subject, she rarely gave them utterance, unless piqued into it by the arguments wherewith I delighted to stimulate her spirit, because, when controverting my paradoxes, her dark grey eyes seemed to deepen into gentian blue, when contrasted with the vivid blushes painting on her noble face the earnestness of her soul.

Mrs. Greysdale delighted in hearing us dispute. The languor of indisposition still hung over her. She was, at best, less strong of mind and body than her sister; and there would she sit, on a sofa near the open windows, her eyes fixed on the upslanting lawn, towards the centre of which was a flower plot still bright with China and monthly roses, -as if to avoid watching the eagerness of our controversy.

On my part, of course, this fervour was assumed. I cared not a split straw whether Slavery were abolished, or Africa christianized,

E

or Catholics held cheap, or corn dear. But Sophronia, warm with all the best instincts of humanity, felt what she spoke, and looked what she felt, and felt so beautifully,—that I was often troubled in my casuistry by the eloquence of her eyes.

For while the poor girl fancied that the outpourings of her pure soul conveyed nothing but the plainest common sense, they expanded into a stream of the choicest poetry. The common sense of nature is poetry. It is only by affecting to improve nature, we ever fall into vulgarity.

This new acquaintance of mine, proved in short a wonderful relief to the monotony of discussing bills of fare, and tailor's bills, and bills of rights and bills of wrongs,-and bills for the prevention of this and suppression of that,which supplied us with our very small talk at the Castle. I accepted the godsend of Mrs. Greysdale's and her sister's intelligent conversation, as one drinks a glass of mineral water in the morn

ing, to assist the digestion of the day; and having kept sacred and secret an adventure which I knew would expose me to quizzing without end, used to steal away on horseback to Sunning Hill, twice or thrice in the week, as slily as if in pursuit of a bonne fortune.

The sisters took no pains to attract me; that is, they attempted no allurements having any ulterior object. Mr. Greysdale was an affluent man, and his wife and her sister coheiresses to a noble fortune. The simplicity of their modes of life was the result of choice and indisposition;—and had Sophronia chosen to appear in the world, her beauty and dowry might have secured her a far better match than a younger brother like myself. But the genuine friendship they entertained for me was as deadly a bait as the most expert chaperonical fisher of men could have devised; and I was as fairly hooked, as if angled for, a whole season, at Almack's.

A man does not know what he is about,

under such circumstances. Strolls in green lanes, drives and rides in the forest or over the springy elastic paths of Bagshot or Ascot, seem nothing, at the time, but strolls and rides and drives; and one goes on talking and listening, listening and talking,-till one discovers, at the close of a certain number of weeks, that one has fallen,-no, not fallen,sauntered, desperately in love.

Snatches of sober argument recur to one's mind, as one is riding home after such a visit: and one fancies one has been doing nothing but argue, not perceiving that they recur accompanied by the outline of a delicate nose or dimpled chin. Reminiscences of a noble sentiment steal back into one's soul, as one is closing one's eyes on one's pillow; and it does not appear that half the charm of the recollection consists in mellifluous tones, that linger on the ear like those of some favourite melody. One day, in a fit of Cecil Danbyism, I was doing fantastical, either to surprise my fair

auditresses, or to fool away the vapours of too much hock, in which I had indulged the preceding evening: and began to jest upon the enthusiasm with which Sophronia was describing a scene of her own loved island of the west, which sounded to me exceedingly like a pilfer from Paul and Virginia.

"I abhor what is called fine scenery!"-said I, as languidly as any Creole could have uttered it. "I never wish to fatigue my eyes with a wider contemplation than this pretty little lawn, with its drooping larch yonder, and the old elm tree in the corner. Are there not painters in the world to bring rocks and glaciers to us, and save the cost and care of travel? One might buy a Claude for half the cost of a journey to Greece: and a fine Salvator for the amount of a tour in the Abruzzi, without reckoning the risk of being shot by briganti in the attempt."

"How easy it is to discover when Mr. Danby is talking from his heart, and when for effect