myself) a dreary bachelor, and know not, alas! how to manage you, dear lovely creatures, in your vagaries-your-bless my soul!-your indispositions, I mean. You see how grossly ignorant I am, by miscalling so your maladies! Dear! dear! dear! what must I do? which way can I turn? Is there no lady Bountiful present, to prescribe for this angel? Lovely! oh! how lovely! even in the semblance of grimvisaged death!"

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Take off her gloves, 'squire, and pat her hands," said an old woman (a baker's wife), now decked in her holiday gown, Mr. Smith obeyed with burlesque solemnity. So, dame, so, as you do the ladies' fingers for their breakfast in a morning. Pat, pat, pat; and knead, and knead; and roll, and roll, and roll. Hey, the d-l! this will never do; it only creates a convulsion' about the mouth, that is really very alarming. Zounds! we must have a doctor. What, is there not one doctor in this great assemblage? Oh! ye healthy tribes! and do ye feed no doctor?

a guinea for a doctor!

A doctor! a doctor!

What, none! none

yet? Dame, dear dame! is there nothing more to be taken off? Is there not some

thing to be done about a lace? Ay, to cut a lace, or some of the body-clothes?"

"Sir," said the witty buck curate, before mentioned, "her ladyship, you see, anticipating this event, has already cut her clothes."

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Ay, Mr. Smith," exclaimed the facetious alderman, "you this evening practise more virtues than one, as you talked of in your speech on Saturday. You have already fed the hungry; you now attend the sick; and may clothe the naked, if you are truly charitable."

"Heavens! sir!" replied Mr. Smith, "don't talk of virtues here, where there is no humanity. Will no one have the commiseration, the bowels of compassion, to get me a burnt cork, to roll beneath this beautiful nose (which still is beautiful, though unlike my own), or give me a glass of water to sprinkle, drop after drop, like balmy dew, upon the lilies of this face?"

At this moment, lady Enderfield opened her beautiful eyes, and fixed them, with strong expressions of contempt and indignation, upon Mr. Smith; who, however, with undaunted, persevering burlesque, gravely congratulated her upon her sudden reco

very; and her ladyship, to get rid of his buffoonery (which was almost convulsing every one else with laughter), now arose with dignified hauteur, and taking the duchess of Springcourt's arm, said, she would go into the balcony for a little air; * in accomplishing which, she passed by Julia and her party. On Fitzroy she cast an irresistibly-inviting glance; but whether he wished to obey it by following her or not, it was not now in his power easily to move; for during lady Enderfield's swoon, our heroine and party had retired to seats, which, from the fast decrease of company, were easily obtained. On chairs, near an open window, Fitzroy and Julia sat; and lady Gaythorn and lord Francis contrived, as if accidentally, to fix their own chairs so as to securely jam them up there.

Fitzroy had, with all the tenderness of ardent love, expressed his joy at Julia's escape from death; which his distracted fears had, for a moment, presented to his frantic imagination as inevitable; and she thanked him with ineffable sweetness, tinctured with that perturbation all the events of the evening had combined to awaken in her susceptible mind; and in such a tumult

were all her thoughts, that she felt unequal to conversation; and eagerly anxious to meditate upon the paradoxical conduct of Fitzroy, who, not less agitated than herself, with the addition of feelings infinitely more .embarrassed and untranquil, still wished to lure her into à conference with him; yet, conscious of some impropriety of conduct towards her, he almost dreaded what he at the same time earnestly wished for.

Very pale and very sad, he, for some time, sat gazing at her, in uneasy silence; but, at length, he summoned up sufficient courage to say" I have scarcely for a moment seen you to-night."

Julia, more than ever astonished, raised her eyes, and would have answered this address with careless, cool indifference, had not the languor and melancholy of his fine countenance, and the tremulous tone of his voice, disarmed the little resentment pride had awakened; and, with a good-natured smile of bewitching sweetness, she replied

"Where you had so great multitude for guests to attend, would it not have been exceedingly of impossibility of any indi vidual to engage much from your time.”

"Sweet as lovely! amiable as fascinat

ing! I see you in every point of view," said Fitzroy, with energy; "but I, alas! deserve not this bewitching kindness; this sweet, benign allowance for my infatuated desertion of you. But why-why," he

continued, in a saddened tone—“ why did you leave me, Julia?—why did you not allow me to accompany you and lady Gaythorn? Had I remained with you, you would have shielded me from every folly: in parting from you, I have been betrayed into unpardonable weakness. I have been infatuated by pity; and am unhinged, embarrassed, perplexed-made miserable!"

Julia paused for a moment after Fitzroy ceased, to recover her firmness, which his words, his voice, his look, his manner, contributed to subdue; then mildly she said, with dignity and feeling-" Mr. Fitzroy, my knowledge for you has, it is much true, been very, very small; but circumstance after circumstance have arisen and combined to display for me, so great deal forcibly, the virtues of your mind, that very certainly I must be insensibility's very bad child, could your happiness now be object of indifference for me. I do know not at all what has unhinged, embarrassed, and