Mrs. Hargrave, in imitation of the countess of Gaythorn, was become a wonderful admirer of beauty; and no one now could expect her favour who was not handsome.

"I have been in company with so many hideous women of late," said Mrs. Hargrave, when they were all seated at the breakfast-table, "that it is really quite refreshing to look at Miss De Clifford. You must have heaps of lovers, Miss De Clifford ?"

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"Not one, at all, that I know of, madam," replied Julia, blushing, except Henry Goodwin, who is for my acknowledged caro sposo."

"That is your youngest boy, if I recollect right, Harriot ?" said Mrs. Hargrave."Pray is Rosa improving in her looks?-is she growing up any thing approaching to pretty?" ›

Mrs. Goodwin smiled, while a deep blush heightened her natural fine bloom, but was silent. Julia blushed too with resentment, and with vivacity replied, " Miss Goodwin, before I did ever see her, had passed approach for pretty, and was arrived quite at perfection of beauty."

"Indeed!" said Mrs. Hargrave; "I am

vastly happy at hearing this surprising news. I have not seen Rosa since she was in the smallpox, which I thought must have completed her beauty; and I always forgot to ask how she fared."

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"My dear sister," replied Mrs. Goodwin, surely you have been often at my house since Rosa had the smallpox?"

"Well!" answered Mrs. Hargrave," but I never looked at her."

Tears started to Mrs. Goodwin's eyes, and she hastily bent them to the ground, to conceal what trembled in them.

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“In vero,” said Julia, “ I am a great deal astonished why for any one could not look at Rosa Goodwin; for yet I never did behold so much attractive a countenance-oh, so lovely, that when walked I have sometimes with her in the Museum garden, I have been distressed very strongly by the observation she awakened; for not a being did ever pass her who did not turn to gaze, and make exclamations expressive of their much admiration, for such sweet, mild beauty."

The clergymen looked at each other, and smiled." Great, indeed," said doctor Sydenham, "must Miss Goodwin's beauty

be, if she could be the object of attraction when her companion was Miss De Clifford."

Julia's cheeks were again suffused with a vermilion tint, and with a smile she replied -“Indeed I could nothing claim for the admiration excited; for I was such a spectre of illness, that the only emotion could I awaken, was pity very much in the beholder."

"I know not what you then might have been," returned this pleasant-looking, cheerful old man; "but I see you are now exactly what I should wish to be my wife, was I five-and-twenty!"

Julia answered him playfully; and a lively, spirited dialogue was carried on by them.

"Do not put faith in his protestations, Miss De Clifford," said Mrs. Hargrave; " for doctor Sydenham is the greatest flirt in the world."

Mrs. Hargrave's information was pretty accurate. Doctor Sydenham was a notori.ous flirt, and favourite of all the young women in the country. He was a bachelor of seventy. In his youth he had been too poor, and in his old age too wise, to marry.

He had often felt the influence of the blind urchin; but so frequently did he sigh in hopelessness, that his heart became callous to disappointment, and he could now make love to the daughters and granddaughters of those very beauties he had formerly sighed for without a pang of fond regret. Not until he had almost attained his grand climacteric was his merit (which was certainly conspicuous) rewarded: then, after being long reconciled to a fate which seemed to say he was to live and die a curate, most unexpectedly a large living was presented to him, and to which he was scarcely inducted, when another, even more considerable, was bestowed upon him. It was now too late, he thought, to commence a wedded life. His parochial flock he adopted as his children, who all honoured their pastor, and loved him as a father. He was kind to his relations, benevolent to the poor, possessed the esteem of the old, and the affection of the young. His house, the seat of hospitality, was often filled with guests; and harmless mirth and innocent amusement were ever promoted by the cheerful, venerable host.

Mr. Bloomer, by some preternatural in

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fluence, had obtained the singular favour of inverting the order of nature; and after he had passed his fiftieth year, time took with him a retrograde motion, and every birthday his age decreased one year; so that now he was only forty, though had he gone on as men (and women too, though often against their inclination) usually do, he must certainly have numbered sixty years. This man possessed a large fortune, independent of his church preferment, which was considerable. He had been called Beauty Bloomer" in his youth, and still thought himself an Adonis; and he was, and ever had been, so devoted to himself, that no expence his own purse could supply, no trouble which others could take, was ever spared by him for his gratifications. He was the most formal, preciselooking being, that ever prim exactness modelled. That dust, or soil, which the wear of the day gave to others, and even the neatest people, never approached him; for he constanly appeared as if an invisible glass-case, or some ethereal substance, shielded him from all which could discompose or disorder his appearance; and now, at break