quire a constant habit of cheerfulness and good humour, and you will stand a fair chance of being long loved and admired; remembering never to marry under any circumstances, unless you respect the understanding and conduct of the man, even though he were a prince.”—“I can never marry," said Fanny; "for no such respectable man, so deserving, will find his way to the Parsonage, and I am sure I will never go far from it to look for him; for I will not, after all you have said, 'unsought be won,'" Pneumanee smiled, and was glad to find she was fond of Milton; " for I heard her tell your brother this morning, that the fresh fields called him 'to mark how mounts the vine, and how the citron grove.” ”—“ O yes,” she said, "it was her paradise to walk with Charles in a morning, and read Milton before breakfast; and she should be miserable to live with any body who did not admire and had the same taste for the Paradise Lost that she had.".

The arrival of two young ladies, who were come to spend their winter in Devonshire for the benefit of their aunt's health, interrupted farther remarks. They had heard Pneumanee was at the Parsonage; and having seen her often in Town, took the liberty to consider her as an old acquaintance, and was so glad to find any body they had ever seen before, that they determined to take the first moment to come and see her. Pnéumanee presented them to the Rector and his wife, as to her best and most highly valued friends. "The best creatures in the world, no doubt," said Miss Volatile; "I am quite delighted to see you again, my dear. How could you leave Town so soon? You don't know how many

delightful balls and masquerades we had after you were gone. I never saw London so gay, the season lasted so long this year; and they say it will last longer and longer every year, till by general consent there will be no summers in the country at all. Tell me, my dear creature, are there any beaux in this part of the world? any balls, concerts, or public rooms? We came but last night, and I want to know all about it. Oh, lady A.'s ball was delightful! Lord R. was there, so affable to every body! wherever he fixed his eye, the ladies were so pleased! eighty thousand year!-well, she will be a lucky woman indeed that can captivate him!-all the world admire him, he is so chatty and good-humoured-whoever he dances with, is sure to get into the papers next day as his intended wife-quite shocking I protest!-The sea air does not tan, does it, ma'am? What do you use for your complexions here? I dare say this good lady, your friend, has a hundred good receipts: her children do them great credit-pure red and white!" pointing to Fanny. "Do you get good milk of roses? arcanum wash? or Venetian bloom? which do they sell best here?-O, I forgot to tell you, Lord R. likes a brown complexion best, I heard him say so, except it was a very fine fair one with darkish hair. He thinks too the present style of beauty rather too fat; so all the ladies are walking down, to be as thin as possible for the next campaign. You have a very good beach here, I believe; pray, ma'am, does your sea air make people fat or thin?" All these questions were asked without any reference to an answer, or indeed any intention of receiving one. All this time her eyes were variously directed, as if in a habit of looking

for something she had never found. Her sister, who had acquired from necessity a habit of listening, could only add a yes or no, which she repeated upon all occasions; and when opportunity would allow, added three or four of one or the other of these expletives, and sometimes of both, to correct a hasty decision, which was generally formed too quick to be always accurate.

"Suppose," said Pneumanee, "this important Peer should change his taste the next season, and prefer a little plumpness in his beauty?"" We should all die of repletion," she said; "but I know a particular friend of his, who corresponds with a brother of a friend of mine; and through her, and him, and his, I shall learn all the variations of his taste, and act accordingly.-We shall be excellent neighbours, I hope; I wish we were not a mile from you-we are very dismal at home, no amusement but reading and working-aunt it is to ill to give dinners, and it is an eating age, you know: you can never get men about you if you don't give dinners; and when you do, they are gone as soon as they have eaten them; they are always impatient to spend their evening some where else; and if by chance they come up into the drawing-room, they show evident impatience to leave it again-unless indeed there's some new beauty there, or a very large fortune; then they buzz about her, as if the more nonsense they talked, the more they were sure to please her-an't it so, Mary?"" Yes, yes," replied Mary; "oh no, no, no, not always."—" Why no," Miss Volatile said; "not always: for instance, when Lord R. spoke to me, he knew I delighted in plants, and how much they absorbed the oxygen, and emitted a deleteri

ous gas. I had met him at that delightful man's lecture, who had promised us a little anatomy next week--how wise we are all growing! what did our poor grandmothers do?"

"They studied more the fashions of the heart and conduct, perhaps," said Pneumanee? « Perhaps they did," Miss V. said; "for they were in a wretched state of ignorance. How they danced, poor things, with their Louvre and Rigadoon! had never even heard of a waltz! How the gay Sir Philip Sydney, that fine old beau, would stare to see what a fine gentleman is in these days!”— "Sir Philip,” said the Rector (who had listened to this never-ending rhapsody with great composure)" was the most heroic and virtuous character of his time, the delight of the age in which he lived."—" Could you find a modern fine gentleman," said Pneumanee, "for whom the court and the country would equally mourn by general consent for many months: such a testimony from a whole nation puts his merit out of the reach of comparison."-"Oh, but who would like such an old squaredtoes now? what a precious figure he would make at a waltz, rounding his elbows to a circle-going to bed at eleven, and getting up with the sun-à propos to the sun, it puts me in mind of this frightful comet that is stalking about, portending mischief. I am quite afraid of it; they say, if it should bolt and run out of its course (and there seems to be no reason in the world why it should not), it would burn and crush us all to powder; besides, I am told it singes the air in some mysterious way, and spoils the clearest complexion." Fanny laughed loud at this absurdity, and really believed that Miss

E

Volatile had said it on purpose to amuse them; and as soon as she had tired herself with remarks, and left the Parsonage, Fanny innocently asked, if all London ladies talked so much, and to so little purpose? Pneumanee hoped that the number was very small; for it was a habit that every body dreaded as the severest tax politeness and good breeding had to pay, to listen to such extreme folly; which unfortunately," she said, "seemed the more abundant in measure as it was less in weight."

his

In their morning's walk by the sea, where an east wind had left a high rolling wave, though its own violence had subsided, they saw floating boards that gave the immediate idea of a wreck; and the children, with sighs and groans, were all conjecturing the misery of the sufferers. Fanny dwelt on the sorrows and grief of their friends, and made to herself such a picture of woe, that she began immediately to cry at her own scenery, when an old fisherman appeared with his net over shoulders; they learnt from him that the boards had been washed from the beach by a tide unusually high. They had indeed been part of a ship; but, thank God! it had come to a much happier ending: he and his dame had been often warmed by some of its old timbers, and he wished every ship in his Majesty's service, God bless him! might shiver their timbers in the same comfortable way. "God help the poor sailors," he went on, "who were near the coast last night!-it blew guns. I prayed heartily for 'em, and I know how much more heartily they prayed for themselves. I have been to sea, man and boy, these sixty years; I have seen such sights! such clinging to masts and rigging! such screams for help