ous puppet, with whom he whiles away his idle hours, but the partner, the helpmate, God has given him as the solace of his weary ones; the woman who is to be the mother of his children, the mistress of his home, and with whom he is to walk, hand in hand, through the painful journey of life, to that eternity where they hope not to be divided. But when I see, every season, the marriages that are formed, and the motives that lead to them, I turn with repugnance from the contemplation. remember that good-natured but weak man, Lord Allingham, who was induced to propose to a girl he had met at every ball for six seasons before, without bestowing a thought on her, except to remark that her tournure was gauche, and her feet clumsy, because some interested people about him assured him she admired him. He marries-discovers that he has made indeed a sad mistake; for he

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finds that her temper is irascible; that her manner is even more gauche than her tournure; and her mind as blank as her countenance. Poor Allingham! but he is rightly punished for his vanity. One of our acquaintances marries a woman because half the men in town admire her; and another is piqued into marrying one who has admired half the men in town, because, with a laudable ambition, he wished to rival them in her good graces. A thought beyond the gratification of the present fancy seldom enters into their heads; and, that fancy satisfied, they are left at leisure to discover the defects, moral and physical, that now are as visible to their scrutiny as they were previously concealed. What follows? the poor woman, married through caprice, and neglected from the same motive, is mortified, if not wounded; and seeks consolation in a round of dissipation, where

she soon finds some idle lounger, who by his attentions soothes her wounded vanity, while inflicting an indelible stain on her reputation, if not on her virtue. How many such women might, in the hands of a sensible and honourable man, have become happy and estimable! instead of serving, as is but too frequently the

case,

"To point a moral and adorn a tale,"

in the circles in which they move. To trace effects to causes, all because they had been selected by some silly man as an object of selfish gratification, and deserted from the same motive. There is a mutual respect visible in all the conduct of Delaward and his wife, and a sustained tenderness, which never for a moment degenerates into that familiarity so disgusting in the ménages of newly married people. And this noble, this dignified woman, is the friend of Lady Annandale: what might not that lovely creature have become under

the tuition of such a Mentor! Delaward told

me yesterday, that Lady Delaward had received a very melancholy letter from her friend.

"Poor Lady Annandale!" said he; "she deserves a better fate for, though a goodnatured and well-bred man, Annandale is quite incapable of appreciating such a person as his wife, or of rendering her happy. She staid with us some time, and I saw much to admire in her. All her fine qualities, and she has several, are natural to her; and all her defects, and they are but few, are the effects of the excessive indulgence of Lord and Lady Vernon, acting on a lively imagination and a quick temper. She had not been here three days before I saw a visible improvement in her, for the example of Lady Delaward had the best effect but she is so young, and so much influenced by Miss Montressor, who, entre nous, is a very improper and dangerous friend for her, that I fear a season in London,

with its contaminating follies, will undo all the good that has been instilled into her by Lady Delaward.

I questioned Delaward further about Miss Montressor, and find that her aunt, a worthy and amiable woman, has been from early youth an intimate friend of Lady Vernon. A sister, many years her junior, married imprudently, and accompanied her husband abroad; where, after twelve or fourteen years of continental dissipation, he was shot in a duel, and Mrs. Montressor and her daughter were left, with a scanty pittance, to subsist as best they could. The beauty and polished manners of the mother rendered her a welcome guest at all the houses of fashionable resort; and being a weakminded woman, without any mental resources, she abandoned herself wholly to the pleasures of society, leaving her daughter to the care of a French femme de chambre, whose morals