"Do you not think that three cousins, when they are what the world calls 'accomplished, lovely, and marriageable,' but rather bold, daughters, of a rich man, are dangerous companions for a young rector? I fancy myself to be sitting down and watching the pretty creatures, all so innocently waiting for a new object or source of excitement, all meditating in their hearts how they can manage matters so as to be invited out to marry, all of them so full of boarding-school poetry, and fifth-rate sentiment, so fearfully alarmed lest, peradventure, your night-cap should not have been properly aired, or your slippers might be a little damp, and yet, after all the fuss and bother, not caring a pin for your real comfort, but only about baiting their poetical and sentimental traps to catch a husband."

"Well, upon my word, you are the most uncharitable Fairy Queen that ever spake to a wandering knight."

"I don't mean to be so, because, as I gladly admit, while they are doing and speaking thus, they are partly unconscious of their own want of heart and truthfulness. Through thoughtlessness, many do such things; yet, although we may pity, we must as certainly guard against them."

"But, dear Ella, you surely cannot imagine me capable of forgetting my, or rather our,' Mary ?"

'No, George, I know you too well for supposing anything of the kind. But these ladies of the hall are not acquainted with the fact of your engagement; and even if they were, I think that it would not greatly alter the case, unless, indeed, to render them a little more assiduous. Ladies are very severe in denouncing those of your sex who retract engagements; but they are by no means so eager to aid them in adhering to their pledges. There are many-very many-noble exceptions; but as a rule, ladies do not look upon matters matrimonial as being really settled until the Church has declared it. So that the most desperate attempts are made to carry off a prize, even at the moment when the rightful owner looks with joy upon its coming into harbour. The doctrine that all is fair in love-matters has been preached so successfully, that it has shaken the supremacy of moral justice in all affairs of the heart."

"But, Ella, are you not forgetting that, in all such cases, there are two wrong doers? You speak so mysteriously of danger, that I am inclined to believe you have forgotten all our old lessons and resolves about firmly adhering to the path of duty and honour; but, more especially, you overlook my new character, as a clergyman, which would preserve me from taking part in such proceedings."

The truth now flashed upon Ella's mind that her brother was taking all this to himself, as if she meant that he would dishonour his bond, which was about the last thought to have entered her head. At one moment her fear was lest one of the Miss Poinders should fall in love with her brother; for in her sisterly heart she was proud of Lester, and looked upon him as one who, above all others, was qualified for winning the most devoted love from any lady not positively engaged. Then, again, reverting to her suspicions, and dwelling upon what she remembered of their childish flirtations, when the Poinders were at Southampton, she feared lest her brother should innocently get entangled in some web of intrigue from which there would be no escape without pain to himself and Mary, and a tale of blighted affections for all the tea-tables round Crosswood. Wishing to disabuse his mind of the error into which he had fallen, as well as to open his eyes to a few facts about woman's life, she boldly declared the whole truth.

"I did not mean that you would become a party to their machinations, but this, that, probably, one of the Miss Poinders would be smitten, might, even, fall desperately in love with you, and then a great deal of unhappiness would follow upon both sides, and, of course, all the unpleasant small talk of a country town."

Lester could not refrain from bursting into a merry laugh. He had not a grain of vanity in his nature. And, as to the chance of any young lady falling desperately in love with him, he looked upon the theory as being perfectly absurd. It is true that he had heard the loose conversation of undergraduates, and had listened to the strange unhallowed allusions which are frequently made by gentlemen who sit over their wine when the ladies have retired; but these things never remained long enough upon his mind to corrupt his heart. He worshipped at one shrine, and admired the sex as a whole, neither believing them to be designing, nor charging them with weakness. As yet he knew woman only as he had idealized her, in which process he had been one-sidedly assisted by the specimens with whom he had grown up. And they were of the best. His mother, tender, generous, and full of that sort of feeling which is vitalized poetry, nobleness, and purity; his sister, full of thought and self-contained, alive to everything great, honourable, and Godlike-strong enough to become a Spartan mother, tender enough for a beautiful Ophelia; and Mary, his affianced, who was running over with the poetry of Nature, and devotional feeling. These were they who had sat for Lester's portrait of woman, others he knew not; and who shall wonder at his being almost shocked at the seemingly light manner in which Ella had spoken of a Miss Poinder falling in love with him?

Even, on the side of his personal appearance, he was free from vanity, and knew not the manful beauty of his form and features. It seemed impossible to him that there could be anything attractive about his looks ; and, although not with discernment, it was with perfect honesty, when his fit of merriment had subsided, that he told his sister there was nothing to fear upon that score.

"I'm half afraid that my Fairy Queen is poking fun at her listening knight, who knows well enough that he is no Adonis. Do you know, Ella, that the last time I surveyed my face in a glass, I was rather astonished to find, not only that its colour had departed, but to perceive, also, that a certain disagreeable tallowy look, something of the “ sere and yellow leaf" combined with a thoroughly unhealthy appearance, had usurped its place. It appeared to me more like the face of one likely to become the humble slave of Dr. Moule, than the conqueror of female hearts. And, by the way, although I know now that all I want to restore the old colour is a few days' run upon the hills -that reminds me I have to spend-to-morrow evening with the good Doctor -rest assured, Ella, even if there could be any, under other circumstances, there is no danger while my face looks so much like that of a churchyard deserter. But let us change the subject."

'No, George, I cannot consent to change it while you entertain such erroneous ideas about our sex. It concerns your future peace of mind to have the subject fairly sifted. I believe that there is more unhappiness caused by good men who are ignorant, than by evil ones who are designing. The former are sure to win affection through their kindness and general suavity of manner when not attempting it, or even dreaming such a capture to be possible; while the latter more frequently overshoot the mark, and put intended victims upon their guard."

"Then for the sake of your sex, ours had better be wickedly-designing than honourably good."

Don't be provoking, George. You know I don't mean that. What I mean is this, that the good man who does not intend it, is far more likely to give birth to hopeless affection, than is the evil one who desires it. Unless the good man is upon his guard, he is likely to say and do such things as are sure to kindle the fires of love in a generous woman's heart; and you are just the sort of person to inflict this damage. And, speaking of good looks, while I confess that yours have not improved during the past eighteen months, since the death of dear mother, yet there is far more danger in your pale anxious face, wearing as it does a robe of sorrow and of care, than there would be if it were ruddy or brown with health. It is the pale-faced clergyman who attracts the attention and wins the sympathics of the unmarried members of his congregation. For him there is no end of tender admonitory epistles, filled with loving advice to take care of his health, to preserve himself for the glorious future awaiting him, and so forth; all of which are penned by the admiring and thoroughly good-hearted girls who sit to listen to his

رو

"And is it solely the pale face, Ella, which wins him so much favour? "Not solely; but as I wished to say, it is altogether a mistake to suppose that personal beauty, the mere mould of a face, and what is commonly called good looks, can win the heart of a woman. Such beauty pleases her eye, and gratifies that love of all beautiful forms which she possesses; it may even go so far as to call forth a few sighs and tears, and excite a degree of sentimental pondering a fact which induces many of them to imagine the flutter and excitement of their hearts is a token of new born love, but it is nothing of the sort.'

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Still, my Fairy Queen-and now that you have launched upon the theme, I will resign myself to receiving all the lesson-you will acknowledge that the flutter and excitement, as you call it, may ripen into love; that the eye being pleased will hardly fail to bribe the heart, and so secure the conquest?

"I make no confessions which are not warranted by the facts. The truth is, that, comparatively speaking, beauty has nothing to do with winning the heart, not even in the case of gentlemen, who, however, are far more powerfully and deeply influenced by it than we are. Personal beauty is nothing more than the elegantly spread table sans the eatables; and if the latter be not supplied, the former will not meet our wants. I remember reading of a young captain who saw a beautiful female form and face, which so ravished his senses that, as closely as her own shadow, he followed the owner about for days. He sought no introduction, but gave himself up to this strange mode of worship, until his friends believed his days would end in a lunatic asylum. Happily for him his release soon came. One hot day, after he had followed her about in her shopping excursion, watching her as it she had been an angel, just when the fair one was stepping into her carriage, she turned to her page and shrieked out, I'll wring your neck, you young wretch, if you don't take more care of Fido.' The said Fido being a strangly ugly French poodle, which had been inconvenienced by the passengers. From that moment the charm was dissolved, and the captain became perfectly convalescent. The voice was hideously unmusical, but it cured him. To secure a conquest over his heart something more was needed than personal beauty; and it is just the same with woman.

"I remember a circumstance of that kind, Ella, happening to myself. It

was at a dinner party, where I sat opposite to a lady whose face was the most perfect model of beauty; indeed, it was the loveliest I ever saw. For a time I could neither eat nor speak, and did nothing but look at her. But, as in the case of the captain, I was disenchanted the moment she spoke; for among discordant voices hers was unmatchable; it makes me shudder even now to remember its tones."

"Do us the justice to believe that the majority of our sex are influenced in the same way. In truth, to win the heart of a woman-and, of course, I mean one who has not had her heart and all her true feelings destroyed, according to the modern boarding-school methods-a man must have something remarkable in his air, or in the tones of his voice; something in the allembracing width of his charity, or the vastness of his attainments; something in his success as a poet, orator, or statesman; something in the state of his health, or in the greatness of his sorrows. Many a widower has won the love of woman through the intensity of his grief for her whom he had lostthe tender feeling began in sympathy, and ended in all-absorbing love. In all cases there must be, if not something to interest them, at least something which will admit of being magnified by the imagination until it becomes really interesting. I know a young lady who became passionately attached to a gentleman who had a club-foot. She was pained by the idle jests to which he was exposed; she felt how keenly he suffered when the light-hearted and thoughtless rudely ventured to descant upon that topic, or to profess pity for his infirmity; and finally she ended by becoming his passionate admirer. But if a man has been brave enough to perform some heroic deed which -be remembered with pride, it will be no bar to his success, even if he should be positively ugly; for in that deed, if, Othello-wise, he will but recount it to her, he has the means of winning the best hearted of our sex."

may

"Well done, my Fairy Queen. And so you imagine that, if I were to spend much time at Rose Hall with the Miss Poinders, I should so far interest them as to win their love?"

Yes, certainly you would."

"But, apart from the pale face, which I fully believe will soon be ruddy again, with all due gravity I ask, what is it in me that would interest them?

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"Your earnestness and tenderness. If you speak upon any subject it is with your heart, and not merely with your tongue, you deliver your sentiments. There is nothing cold and formal about you, but always, when speaking of nature or mankind, you do so with soul and feeling. Then, again, there is a peculiar, almost feminine, tenderness in your character. It would be impossible that you should read a touching story without being greatly affected. Even last evening, while you were reading that story of the ruined cottage, in The Excursion, you were powerfully affected, and had the trick of grief. This leads you, when the subject of conversation is in any degree painful, as affecting the happiness or lives of others, to speak in an undertone of emotion; and there is something almost fatal to the peace of a thoroughly good-hearted, generous, and disengaged woman, who is daily brought into contact with a man who allows himself to indulge in that habit.' Now you mention it, I remember that it is so; but I am not conscious of it at the time I am speaking."

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"No, you are not, and simply because, through allowing your feelings to have the mastery, they give the tone and colour to your speeches; but there is danger in it, and, for the sake of the innocent and confiding, who may be

deceived, you must check the practice, so as to avoid inflicting the pain which, in your heart, you would not approve.'

"There may be a great deal of sound philosophy in what you say, Ella; and by-and-bye I shall think the matter quietly over, trying to separate the exact measure of truth from that which I must attribute to your sisterly exaggeration and care for my happiness. But how and where did you learn all this? Who was your Mentor? Have you had some painful experience in this matter? Ah, Ella, you blush! Tell me, my dear good sister," and here his voice became tremulous with anxiety, "have you learnt all this through suffering ?"

"No, George, I am heart-whole and perfectly secure; I have had no personally painful experience. As far as my simple knowledge extends, it has been gained partly from observation, partly from reading good books, and partly from the occasional remarks of Dr. Moule. He does not do it now, but years ago he used to talk to me in a most confidential strain, and somehow he managed to make me see for myself, and meditate upon what I saw ; I believe he did me good, for I find myself free from many of the troubles which afflict others, and probably less likely to rush into a profitless marriage. I have much, very much, for which to thank our good old friend."

"Whoever wins you, Ella, will win a prize. All I am astonished at is, that you still remain to be won."

Yes!

"As yet, I have never seen the man to whom my heart would answer, And when I do, he will be-”

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Faultless, and the very paragon of men.

No, not faultless, for then he would never advance nearer to perfection. He would be like polished marble, always the same. I would rather have the man who has many faults, but who has strength enough to admit and correct them; for with him life would be a beautiful reality, and a progression. Perhaps, George, it may be wrong in me, but I have a strange feeling against being perfect. I want something to set before myself, something to achieve; and I am happier while struggling up, than when the object of my desires has been gained."

"At least, Ella, you have had abundant experience in that striving to attain'; for, when we were children, whatever your mind was set upon was invariably accomplished: I never knew you to be without some purpose, and cannot remember your failing; there was always something to be learnt in a week, or some piece of work to be finished in a given number of days; I used to wonder, and feel annoyed, that you could not be tempted to leave it undone, but somehow your plodding example excited and assisted me, as your words now do. But I must be up and doing. Think of this, Ella, I have real sermons to prepare; for I, that sit and learn so much from you, am to stand up as a teacher! And somehow I cannot get on with repeating the discourses I have given before. It seems, while I am reading them, to be merely playing a part, and yet the best men do it. Then, what with saying goodbye to the old haunts, my fine old beech-tree, and the dells in the common, there will hardly be a minute to spare."

Ella gazed after her brother, as he quitted the room, with something more than the pride of a sister. And, if the truth be told, her only wish at that moment was, instead of meeting the man unto whom her heart could answer, Yes, that Fate would kindly permit her to spend the years of life in companionship with the young rector of Crosswood. She was not romantic, and

yet that was her one desire.