part, I shall affect to think my wife rien de remarquable in the way of good looks; an insensibility which this vain woman will attribute to my devotion to her; and it will console her vanity, which I know to be as excessive as it is sensitive, to believe that there is one man in London who thinks her more irresistible than her beautiful rival; and that that man is her rival's liege-lord.

The settlements are drawn, and on the 14th all will be in readiness for the nuptial ceremony. Lord and Lady Vernon have insisted that it shall be performed, with primitive simplicity, in their village church; when, probably, the rector who christened la belle Augusta and her papa, for aught I know-will read me a homily on the duties of husbands, similar to one I heard on a like occasion some three years ago. Heigh-ho! how old it makes one feel, to recall to memory such

a remarkable epoch in a man's life as a marriage! The late Lady Annandale was a very beautiful and amiable woman; mais, not content with being good herself, she would fain have rendered every one else equally excellent; and, most of all, her unworthy lord. Poor dear soul! how pale and sorrowful she used to look, when I gave utterance to any of my opinions on religious subjects, or laughed at the peccadilloes of people of fashion! She tried to reclaim me, as she called it; but she "did her spiriting gently," and an unkind or harsh word I never heard from her lips, nor one implying a reproach, unless it might be the last, when she said to me, "We have been too much separated on earth, my dear husband, by a want of similarity of sentiments: let us not, with my last breath I pray you, be divided in a future state, by a want of religion, and a strict performance of all it enjoins."

Poor Mary! no husband who fell short of the virtues of a Wilberforce would have satisfied her; and I, Heaven knows, was the last man on earth to aspire to such perfection. Well, to leave the gloomy past, and return to the cheerful future. On the 14th, I am to be made a happy man; and I want you, my dear Nottingham, to come and see the ceremony performed. Lord and Lady Vernon will expect you on the 12th, so do not disappoint votre ami, ANNANDALE.

LADY A. VERNON TO MISS MONTRESSOR.

You are a sad madcap, my dear Caroline; and, were I to judge you by what you write, I should consider you to be as unfeeling as you. are lively. You shall be present at a certain

solemn ceremony which takes place on the 14th; and the nearer it approaches, the more solemn it appears to me. I am persuaded that, had I paid my long visit to Delaward Park before I had accepted Lord Annandale, I never should have acted thus; and even now I shrink, with secret repugnance, from the fulfilment of the engagement I have so unthinkingly contracted. The letters I have received from Lord Annandale have influenced my feelings quite as much as the various conversations on the subject of marriage, and morals, which I have had with Lady Delaward. He writes as only a man of pleasure would write to a woman who had as much levity and as little sentiment as himself. Notwithstanding his letters breathe of passion, it is not the sort of passion I wish to inspire; and, though I am no casuist, there seems to me to be an immeasurable distance between passion and love. The first may be

entertained without respect for the object, but the second and nobler sentiment must be based on it. Lady Delaward has inspired love; and I (but why compare my unworthy self with one so infinitely superior?) have only engendered a feeling that the least estimable of my sex have often excited. And yet, may it not be, that Lord Annandale is incapable of entertaining love? This belief is, at least, more soothing to my amour propre than my previous supposition, and therefore I will indulge it.

The romance à la George Sand, that you composed on the subject of the amiable family of Mrs. Ord, falls to the ground; for, instead of a melancholy tale of error, her eldest and handsomest daughter is soon to be united to Mr. Neville, the worthy rector of Delaward; consequently, she will return to the home of her infancy, as its happy mistress. My dear father has determined to give young Ord