thing my sister Nicky can do-for certainly a pebble-brooch is quite lost as a brooch."

"My dear Miss Douglas, I am really quite ashamed. This is a perfect robbery, I protest. But I must insist upon your accepting some little token of my regard for Miss Nicky in return." Going to her charity-table, and returning with a set of painted thread-papers, "I must request the favour of you to present these to Miss Nicky, with my kind regards, and assure her I shall consider her lucky stone as the most precious jewel in my possession.

The whole of this scene had been performed with such rapidity, that poor Grizzy was not prepared for the sudden metamorphose of Nicky's pebble brooch into a set of painted thread-papers, and some vague alarms began to float through her brain.

Mary now advanced, quite unconscious of what had been going on; and having whispered her aunt to take leave, they departed. They returned in silence. Grizzy was so occupied in examining her pin-cushions, and counting her buttons, that she never looked up till the carriage stopped in Milsom Street.

Mary accompanied her in. Grizzy was all impatience to display her treasures; and as she hastily unfolded them, began to relate her achievements. Lady Maclaughlan heard her in silence, and a deep groan was all that she uttered; but Grizzy was too well accustomed to be groaned at, to be at all appalled, and went on: "But all that's nothing to the shirt-buttons, made of Mrs. Fox's own linen, and only five shillings the twelve dozen ; and considering what tricks are played with shirt

buttons now-I assure you people require to be on their guard with shirt-buttons now.'

Pray, my dear, did you ever read The Vicar of Wakefield?"

"The Vicar of Wakefield? I-I think always I must have read it; at anyrate, I'm certain I've heard of it."

"Moses and his green spectacles was as one of the acts of Solomon compared to you and your shirt-buttons. Pray, which of you is it that wears

shirts?"

"I declare that's very true-I wonder I did not think of that sooner-to be sure none of us wear shirts since my poor brother died."

"And what's become of her brooch?" turning to Mary, who for the first time observed the departure of Nicky's crown jewel.

"Oh, as to the brooch," cried Grizzy, "I'm certain you'll all think that well bestowed, and certainly it has been the saving of it." Upon which she commenced a most entangled narrative, from which the truth was at length extracted.

"Well," said Lady Maclaughlan, "there are two things God grant that I may never become, an amateur in charity and a collector in curiosities. No Christian can be either-both are pick-pockets. I wouldn't keep company with my own mother were she either one or other-humph!

Mary was grieved at the loss of the brooch; but Grizzy seemed more than ever satisfied with the exchange, as Sir Sampson had taken a fancy for the thread-papers, and it would amuse him for the rest of the day to be told every two minutes what they were intended for. Mary, therefore, left her quite happy, and returned to Beech Park.

VOL. II.-14

CHAPTER LVIII

"He either fears his fate too much,
Or his deserts are small,

TIME

Who dares not put it to the touch,
To gain or lose it all."

MARQUIS OF MONTROSE.

IME rolled on, but no event occurred in Grizzy's life worthy of being commemorated. Lady Juliana began to recover from the shock of her arrival, and at length was even prevailed upon to pay her a visit, and actually spent five minutes in the same room with her. All her Ladyship's plans seemed now on the point of being accomplished. Mr. Downe Wright was now Lord Glenallan, with an additional fifteen thousand per annum, and by wiser heads than hers, would have been thought an unexceptionable match for any young woman. Leaving his mother to settle his affairs in Scotland, to which she was much more au fait than himself, he hastened to Beech Park to claim Mary's promised hand.

But neither wealth nor grandeur possessed any sway over Mary's well-regulated mind, and she turned from that species of happiness which she felt would be insufficient to satisfy the best affections of her heart. "No," thought she, "it is not in splendour and distinction that I shall find happiness; it is in the cultivation of the domestic virtues the peaceful joys of a happy home, and a

loved companion, that my felicity must consist. Without these, I feel that I should still be poor, were I mistress of millions; and she took the first opportunity of acquainting Lord Glenallan with the nature of her sentiments.

He received the communication with painful surprise; but as he was one of those who do not easily divest themselves of an idea that has once taken possession of their brain, he seemed resolved to persevere in his quiet, though pointed attentions.

Lady Juliana's anger at the discovery of her daughter's refusal, it is needless to describe-it may be easily imagined; and poor Mary was almost heart-broken by the violence and duration Sometimes she wavered in her ideas, as to whether she was doing right in thus resisting her mother's wishes; and in the utmost distress she mentioned her scruples to Lady Emily.

of it.

66

"As to Lady Juliana's wishes," said her cousin, they are mere soap bubbles; but as to your own views-why really you are somewhat of a riddle to me. I rather think, were I such a quiet, civil, well-disposed person as you, I could have married Lord Glenallan well enough. He is handsome, good-natured, and rich; and though he is but a lord, and nothing but a lord,' still there is a dash and bustle in twenty thousand a year, that takes off from the ennui of a dull companion. With five hundred a year, I grant you, he would be execrable."

"Then I shall never marry a man with twenty thousand a year, whom I would not have with five hundred."

"In short, you are to marry for love-that's the old story, which, with all your wisdom, you wise, well-educated girls always end in. Where

shall I find a hero upon five hundred a year for you? Of course he must be virtuous, noble, dignified, handsome, brave, witty. What would you think of Charles Lennox?”

Mary coloured.

not marry

"After what passed, I would Colonel Lennox-no," affecting to smile,

"not if he were to ask me, which is certainly the most unlikely of all things.'

“Ah, true, I had forgot that scrape. No, that won't do it certainly would be most pitiful in you, after what passed. Well, I don't know what's to be done with you. There's nothing for it but that you should take Lord Glenallan with all his imperfections on his head; and, after all, I really see nothing that he wants but a little more brain, and, as you'll have the managing of him, you can easily supply that deficiency."

"Indeed," answered Mary, "I find I have quite little enough for myself, and I have no genius whatever for managing. I shall, therefore, never marry, unless I marry a man on whose judgment I could rely for advice and assistance, and for whom I could feel a certain deference, that I consider due from a wife to her husband."

"I see what you would be at," said Lady Emily; "you mean to model yourself upon the behaviour of Mrs. Tooley, who has such a deference for the judgment of her better half, that she consults him even about the tying of her shoes, and would not presume to give her child a few grains of magnesia without his full and unqualified approbation. Now, I flatter myself, my husband and I shall have a more equitable division; for, though man is a reasonable being, he shall know and own that woman is so too-sometimes. All things