Augusta on this point; but she, who knows nothing of the manners of society, was indignant at even the supposition that her dear father and mother could ever be de trop any where; so I left her to indulge in her parental illusion, and directed my counsel to her lord, who is more tractable.

Lord Nottingham preceded the Vernons to Delaward Park. I like not that man; and, I fancy, there is an instinctive dislike between us. He is the beau idéal of an Englishman : proud, reserved, and dignified, with a degree of self-respect that precludes him from ever compromising himself; and with that scrupulous good-breeding, which deprives those who dislike him of the pleasure of attacking him. He is a man whom it is impossible to ridicule; nay more, he imposes a certain respectful restraint, even on his opponents, by his high bearing and polished manners.

His mind seems to be very cultivated, and

his person and face are remarkably distingués ; the highest praise, in my opinion, that can be accorded to male good looks. He is the sort of person à faire fureur à Paris, and to remain wholly unmoved by his success; and yet, "this most potent, grave, and reverend signior," is evidently captivated by the naïve loveliness of a spoiled child of sixteen, having hardly deigned to bestow a glance on the matured charms of your friend. I tried him with all my witcheries,-let fly a shower of bon-mots, réparties, and brilliant anecdotes, that would have covered me with laurels in your recherché circle in the Rue St. Honoré ; but, they fell as unheeded as a display of fireworks before an astronomer examining the début of the last new comet. I then assailed him with piquant criticisms on all the modern French authors: talked of the

vigorous power of Victor Hugo; the mysticism and sentimentality of Balzac; the passion and eloquence of George Sand; the maritime descriptions of Eugène Sue; the comique of Paul de Kock; and the hardiesse of Jules Janin. The man, instead of being charmed, looked perfectly petrified; and, without replying to me, turned to Augusta, and asked her, with a look of undissembled alarm, whether she had read those authors? A weight seemed taken off his mind when she answered in the negative, and stated, that the only modern French books she was in the habit of perusing, were those of Chateaubriand, De Lamartine, and Casimir de la Vigne.

They are the writers that I also read," said Lord Nottingham, " and the ones that I should place in the hands of a wife, or sister."

"You surely cannot be so very Englishwhich, with me, is a synonyme for prudish

as

to object to a young lady's perusal of the authors I have named?" asked I; "authors, whose works contain the truest pictures of actual life?"

"There is much, very much in actual life, Miss Montressor, of which I should wish a wife or sister of mine, to remain in total ignorance. On this point I am ready to exclaim with the poet,

'Give me a friend, within whose well-poised mind
Experience holds her seat. But let my bride

Be innocent, as flowers, that fragrance shed,
Yet know not they are sweet.'"

"Oh! you," I resumed," are one of those who would treat women as pretty puppets, formed for your playthings, and not admit us to a free communion of that knowledge of which you are so proud?"

"I would debar your sex from no part of the knowledge of which ours ought to be proud; but, I do not think, in proscribing the modern authors you have enumerated, such a motive could be fairly attributed to me. I would have the reading of women confined to works of which the morality and purity might serve to strengthen their own; and I can no more approve of placing in their hands books that tend to make them acquainted with all the vices that sully human nature, however well portrayed, than I should approve their witnessing the scenes where such vices are committed, as a useful philosophical lesson. Women, Miss Montressor, according to my opinion, should know no more of the crimes of human nature, than they do of the fearful maladies to which it is subject. You would not have our matrons study anatomy, or visit the hospitals, in order to see to what infir