mities flesh is heir; it is enough for them to be aware that mortal beings are sometimes sorely smitten by loathsome diseases, without investigating, or studying them: so, is it sufficient for them to know, that vice and error exist, without analytically examining the symptoms, causes, and effects, so artistically displayed in the authors to whom you have referred."

“You, probably, think we are only good, because we are what you would call innocent, and what I term ignorant, Lord Nottingham?"

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Happy and charming, I am sure you are, only while you are innocent," he replied; "for, a knowledge of evil, even though it guard from a participation in it, leaves a stain on the purity of the female mind, and a cloud on its brightness: for a high-souled woman, while abhorring the crimes she discovers, where she thought all was fair, must pity while abhorring; and deep pity dims happiness."

Augusta listened to him with an attention I never before saw her pay to any one; her eyes were fixed on his expressive face, which, always handsome, was now lighted up with increased animation; and I marked her turn from him, to look at the man who was, the next day, to become her husband, with a glance in which neither affection nor approbation was visible to my eyes, at least. She was probably at that moment drawing a comparison between the two, not advantageous to the latter.

In this little discussion, and during the pauses of Lord Nottingham, Lord Annandale defended my favourite authors with more zeal than ability; consequently, his flimsy arguments rather injured than served my cause.

Surely, my dear Nottingham, you are

unjustly severe?-Bah! mon ami, you are too prudish. What can be more droll, or more

amusing, than some of the scenes in the works you have censured? I quite agree with Miss Montressor in admiring them.-Well, you may say what you please; but be assured that you will find few people so cynical as not to be vastly amused by those writers.".

I tried to get up an argument on the romantic and classic schools of writing, and instituted comparisons between the passionate and reflective works of our day, giving the preference to the former. But all my erudition was thrown away, at least on Lord Nottingham, for he replied not to my tirade à la De Staël; but Lord Annandale seemed duly impressed with the extent and variety of my savoir, and has, I can perceive, formed a high notion of my powers. What if this preux chevalier, Lord Nottingham, were to become enamoured of Lady Annandale, and if she were to bestow on him her vacant heart- for vacant I know it

is-and if I were to blow the incipient flame into a blaze! I see a whole romance, nay, two romances, comprised in these three little

IFS. Should nothing more eligible, as the elderly ladies say, offer, I may effect a dénoúment to this pretty fiction, which may place the coronet of a countess on my brow, and a strawberry one on that of Augusta-no bad exchange for her, I think, and not a very bad arrangement for myself. In a few weeks I shall be in London, whence you shall be kept au courant of all I do, or intend to do. I hope notre comtesse will not, with her usual indiscretion, shew me up, by relating any of our little peccadilloes at Vienna and Paris; but she is a sad bavarde, and commits her friends nearly as much as she compromises herself, by her imprudence. Addio, cara Delphine! Wish success to your

CAROLINE.

LADY DELAWARD TO LADY ANNANDALE.

I WILL not dwell on the pain your letter has given me, my dearest Augusta, neither will I enter further into the subject of the imprudence you have committed; retrospection being now useless, except as a warning for the future, dearly paid for by the experience of the little happiness to be derived from a perseverance in wilfulness. Lord Annandale is now your husband; and I cannot think so ill of him as to believe that he would have become so, had he known your repugnance at the last to form the tie. It is formed, and is indissoluble; and by this, your first and fatal error of judgment, you have placed yourself in a position to demand a never-ceasing prudence, and neverslumbering self-examination, to enable you to fulfil the duties you have imposed on yourself. To a wife who loves her husband those duties