her youthful days, and by a thousand little attentions which recalled them, and made her forget they were quite gone. With regard to the girls, his attentions were marked to none, and, therefore, welcome to all. Augusta sometimes tried, by her apparent admiration, to make Julian jealous. Ellen liked him— for she liked poetry-and believed he felt all he expressed; and Annie-poor Annie had nor eyes, nor ears, nor heart for aught but "Alphonse;" but this was only betrayed by her crimson blushes, the additional distaste she evinced for Grunter and the Latin grammar, and the increased difficulty she had in mastering a verb or a declension.

Our party were now thinking of leaving Brighton, where all but the matchmaker had passed a quiet, happy winter. She was far from satisfied with the state or the aspect of affairs. There happened to be no great catches at Brighton just then; and Mr. Lindsay, anxious that his daughters should make their début in London with all the charms of novelty, would not allow them to enter into any

society where they would lose that first gloss, which, as Rochefocault says, "like bloom on fruit, is so easily rubbed off, and which can never be restored."

Mrs. Lindsay was obliged, then, to keep herself quiet till time should bring on the London season; her sole amusement, in the interim, being some vain attempts to bring Julian to the point, in which, however, when she gazed at her Augusta's very bright and bewitching beauty, she was not always earnest, for the thought would intrude, that she might marry a duke or an earl, since love, with her, she knew was not a sine quâ non, while, with a woman's and a mother's instinct, she suspected that with Ellen it was every thing, and that it was already bestowed; if so, Ellen, she felt, would never try to please, or deign to accept another; and, as far as she was concerned, the matchmaker's occupation was gone! With regard to De Villeneuve, she watched, but only to see that he made no way in the affections of either. It was a general maxim with her, that all foreigners were de

trimentals-German barons, French counts, and Italian princes-she had the same horror of them all!

And now the London season had commenced, in which Mr. Lindsay intended to give both his nieces the chance of a spring in town, with all the éclat wealth can lend to beauty. He wished, before either gave her heart beyond recal to his son-before his son, too, was bound by an eternal chain, that both should see what the world had to offer of fairer and better. With a father's partial judgment, he suspected that both his nieces preferred Julian to any man they had yet seen. Augusta contrived generally to keep him by her side in public: it was by her horse he rode; it was she hung on his arm when they walked; she accompanied him when he sang; she netted purses, and copied music for him; and all this, which their cousinship sanctioned, a something of dawning passion in his eyes, and devotion in his manner, was beginning to explain otherwise.

But it was difficult quite to understand

Augusta's feeling towards him; and while she, by her attention, kept off all others, she yet gave not sufficient actual encouragement to sanction his declaring his love, if love he felt. She took great pains to attract him, and then, by a sudden change of manner, repelled the affection she herself had sought. Perhaps all this was owing to Mrs. Lindsay's maxim, By keeping them off you keep them on; " perhaps the consciousness of his power roused her pride to an affectation of independence; perhaps she wished to dawn unfettered on the London world of fashion.

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Julian's was a true English heart-the springs of feeling and passion lay deep, and the sluice was firmly closed by reserve and pride; but, once unlocked, the deluge would be fearful. As yet, the waters were only working; the torrent had not gushed forth.

De Villeneuve's visits were very long and very frequent; and poor Zelie had no companion the while but music and a mournful heart. However, Mrs. Lindsay was quite at rest concerning him. She saw that Ellen's

heart was full of another, and into Augusta's head she had conveyed all her own contempt for foreign titles and foreign fortunes. She was very civil-nay, even affectionate in her manner to the count, when once she was certain on this point; for she knew his opinions were influential, not merely with Julian, but with a set of fashionables, whose fiat was important to the debutantes. His public devotion would set the stamp on the gold, and it would pass current in consequence.

Annie's passion, unsuspected by every one else, had not escaped the eye of the mental anatomist, De Villeneuve. His pride and vanity were gratified; he was of a keenheaded, but cold-hearted school; and he scrupled not to encourage what was a moment's amusement to him, and perhaps eternal misery to her. Augusta he flattered and trifled with, but Ellen was his real aim. His pride, his vanity were concerned in winning the calm, apparently unimpassioned girl. He suspected that at heart her wealthy uncle nourished for her a preference which, in a true