we can settle all about Hetty's clothes, and the rest of it."

"Pray manage so that the flunkies shall not hear of it again," I say; "I tremble for you if they find it out."

66

'My character is gone already," she says, resignedly. "I left the carriage in the drive; they will think I came here to keep some appointment. Heavens! it is half-past six!" and indeed while we talked the shadows have lengthened, the insects have crept out, and every tree, save the one beneath which we sit, has its vulgar Jack and Joan beneath it.

"Whatever you do," says Bell, as we part with her at the gates; "don't hint to Cynthia that she is at all too stout; she hasn't the least idea of it, poor thing, and it would make her miserable to be told of it!"

CHAPTER II.

"A holy parcel of the fairest dames

That ever turned their-backs-to mortal view."

ICOTEE LANE has every head out of window, and all, forsooth, because a modest one-horsed brougham with two young women inside it, has stopped at the door of No. 7. And

when that door flies open, and two girls come flying down the steps to meet the other pair, and all four mingle, and kiss one another, I vow they make a posy of beauty not to be matched in the whole town. They conclude their embraces within doors, and I have observed

that when women, who really like each other, take to hugging, they do it with a heartiness and vigour that leave their favours to men very far behind.

They all retire to the parlour above me, where I hear their voices discoursing at a rate that makes me think pityingly of their unfortunate jaws.

By-and-by these two fine ladies, going over our tiny dwelling with a real curiosity, discover and unearth me, exclaiming at the number and size of the volumes by which I sit surrounded.

They turn them over with the tips of their white fingers, to which diamonds hang like clusters of dew, and sit down involuntarily on nothing in particular when they hear for what profession I am studying.

"A doctor!" says Cynthia, and here I may remark she is one of those people who look

go

the finest poetry, but live and speak most decided prose; "what could possess you to in for the worst paid, as it is the least thought of, profession?"

"It is a grand profession," I cry, indignantly; "what other can compare with it? Which is the more noble-the barrister who pleads the cause of a scoundrel and lies this way or that according to his instructions; the parson who expounds matters he knows nothing about, preaches one gospel and lives another; the soldier who is paid to kill his fellow-men; or the man who gives his whole energies to prolonging life, and alleviating human suffering?"

"Bid our gentle Ariel bring bottled beer," says Anak; "methinks after that burst of eloquence our Esculapius must be dry."

"I don't know but what he may succeed, after all," says Bell, surveying me thought

fully, "if he learns the art of flirtation in a thoroughly good school, and acquires a distinguished manner. His looks are in his favour, and doctors, now-a-days, are sometimes quite decent people—the habit of regarding them as mere apothecaries is going out of fashion."

"I hope you will not refuse me your patronage," I say, drily; "being such a great person, I shall be happy to attend you, or your cook, for nothing."

"Bell, where are you?" calls Hetty in the distance; and a dress rehearsal being announced upstairs, I am presently left in peace, but not before Cynthia, turning at the door (she is last) has remarked, in a tone of deep feeling, "Such a pity dear Bell is getting so

stout!"

My studies once broken in upon, I find it hard work to settle to them again, and go upstairs to the parlour, and, once inside it, make