difguifed laugh-"Really, Coufin Matty, you are very kind!"

"Nothing can be a greater inftance, I think, of kindness," cried the Major; “would I had any pretenfions to so happy a gite!"

"You!" exclaimed the Lady-"Heavens! what a pocket companion would you be!"

"Try me," whifpered the Major, "and you will find me, though a fort of a folio compared to your little duodecimo of a coufin, as correct as he can be, and then I fhall look as well bound."

"Bless me, Mr. Delmont, what do you mean!" replied Mifs Goldthorp in the fame tone.

"Shall I give you an explanation ? Will you have a catalogue raisonée of my good qualities ?-First, then, I am in love to distraction."

"Now, for goodness fake, do not talk fuch exceffive nonfenfe-one would really think you mad."

"Then

"Then I am in the next place the most fincere, the most faithful, the most attached of human beings."

"My dear Louifa," faid Mifs Goldthorp aloud," do fpeak to your brother -He really has fo fingular a way of talking....!"

“No, no, Louisa, do you entertain Mr. Winflow. Sir, I affure you, if you do not happen to know it already, my little fifter Louy here is one of the most agreeable and accomplished young ladies of the age. She can write an admirable riddle, guess at the most intricate charade, and develope a conundrum like a little sphinx. She has written at least two eastern tales, and had it not been that the market was overstocked, would already have had a novel, "by a young lady," in the prefs. She has, more over, very confiderable talents for poetry, though I fay it that should not say it, and has frequently figured in the Ladies Magazine, under the name of Parnaffia

-and,

-and, to fay nothing of her odes, her fonnets are exquisite, and, I affure you, ftrictly legitimate."

"Good heavens! brother!" cried Louifa, "what do you mean ?"

"I told you," exclaimed Mifs Goldthorp, laughing exceffively, " that your brother had really loft his fenfes."

"Dear Adolphus," faid Louifa, "what do you intend by all this rattle."-" Nothing in the world," replied the Major, applying ftill more gayly to Mifs Goldthorp, "but like a good brother to dif play the extraordinary qualities of my pretty Louisa here, which her exceffive modesty would conceal. I dare fay now, Sir," (addreffing himself to Middleton Winflow, who stood half petrified before the group) "I dare fay you have never discovered half her accomplishments." Winflow understood nothing of this style of raillery, but took literally whatever was faid; and his grave profeffions of admiration towards, Louifa, which he thought the Major expected of him, redoubled

doubled the burfts of laughter that Mifs Goldthorp either could not, or did not wish to restrain.

The Doctor, in the mean time, caft many an anxious look towards that fide of the room, hardly heeding what the Reverend Mr. Kittiwake and Mrs. Kittiwake, his lady, were talking of, though Mr. Kittiwake was a popular preacher, and his lady one of Mrs. Winslow's most elegant friends, who knew all the latest fashions, and retailed all the most recent little hiftories in the upper circles, and told the most interesting anecdotes in the world of fome of the greatest people in it, who poffeffed the greatest number of virtues, and were the greateft wits as well as the greatest politicians upon its furface. Not even fuch delectable converfation, nor Mr. Kittiwake's account of a person who had feen the apparition of Algernon Sidney without an head, (raised by the magic powers of one of the illuminati, who was supposed to have fold himself to the devil on condition of being able to raise the

fpirits

fpirits of traitors, either with heads or without, at his pleasure); no, not even an anecdote so strange, fo well authenticated, and fo much to the Doctor's taste, could win his attention from what was paffing at the oppofite end of the roomHe caught now and then a word; he understood his fon to be the object of ridicule; and he thought that he and his wife fhould be as little fpared, if Mifs Goldthorp once got into her violent spirits; and the figure, the manner of the Major, who was handsome, tall above the common fize, confcious of his own perfections, and knowing how to display them, diftracted him; he could not bear it, but approaching the young people, who were still laughing immoderately, he cried, Upon my word, good folks, you are very merry!"" And that is very delightful, Sir," faid his niece. "It happens fo feldom that it is quite a novelty to

"Cannot I be permitted to participate in your mirth?" enquired the Doctor.

"Oh!