complete galaxy of expressions. I scarcely know when I thought her loveliest; each gaze of her varying countenance seemed to me surpassingly beautiful, until another came and dimmed it. Little Lucy, on the contrary, had but one regard, and that was soft, melting, confiding. Her eyes swam in their own "liquid lustre." CHAPTER V. Meanwhile, welcome joy, and feast Braid your locks with rosy twine, Rigour now is gone to bed, And advice with scrupulous head, Strict age, and sour severity, With their grave saws in slumber lie.-MILTON. In age we should remember that we have been young, and in youth that we are to be old.-DR. JOHNSON. AND thus two years glided away. Viola Sidney reached the age of seventeen, and it was agreed that it was now time for her to enter into society; or, as Mrs. Sidney phrased it, she was to come out.* I thought the term exaggerated, as there was no court ball, or county assembly to mark this all-important epoch in a young lady's career. Miss Sidney was to visit only in her own small sphere. Highly respectable it assuredly was; still, whether she should make her début at Mrs. Allen's, the banker's lady, or at Mrs. Williams's, the substantial relict of a wealthy West-India * Query. Did this same phrase of being "out," take its rise in the time of the Jacobites? Certes it smacks of the Pretender.-NOTE BY DOROTHY. merchant, was I thought matter of little moment ; yet did it afford subject of debate between her parents for many a conjugal dialogue, after the fashion of Hector and Andromache, as these colloquies generally arose when Mr. Sidney was about to take his departure, not for the wars, but-the city.* At length there arrived cards for a ball at Mrs. Brookes's, and as this lady's husband was a partner in Mr. Sidney's mercantile firm, it was voted nem con. that it would be a most felicitous moment for Viola's entry into the world (at least their world) of fashion. I did not much care for routs or parties of any description; indeed I had scarcely ever mingled in society since my first youth. Long attendance on an idolized and invalid mother, had worn away my best years in strict seclusion. The world and its dazzling illusions had been obscured to me at the very moment when I might perchance have been fascinated by them; and since I had taken up my abode in Mr. Sidney's family, none of their friends had ever thought of inviting me. Why indeed should they? I am sure, to borrow the language of the schoolmen, there would have been a sad marring of the grace of congruity if I had ventured to exhibit at a ball. But on this evening, this one evening, I would have given worlds to accompany them, to have seen Viola at her first ball. I believe I thought, in my own silly way, that half the room would be kneeling at her feet. I fancied that a buzz of admiration would track her steps. I thought that Burke's glowing description of France's martyred queen might, without aught of hyperbole, be applied to Viola. I too saw her in my mind's eye, "just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the sphere" in which she was about to move; "glittering like the morning star, full of life, and splendour, and * What would our learned Grecians say to this specimen of the Oaristus ?-ED. joy." I too" thought that ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult." I too, alas! forgot that "the age of chivalry is gone." Greatly to Marables' annoyance, and in defiance of Miss Sharpe's sneers, Viola had insisted that I alone should officiate at her toilette on that memorable evening. Accordingly, I placed the diamond bodkin in her beautiful hair, which was braided round her classical head; it was her sole ornament, there was no "barbaric pearl or gold," and her white muslin dress was plain and simple as a school-girl's. My task accomplished, I ushered her into the drawing-room. Her mother gazed on her with pardonable vanity. Her father and elder brother were engaged in a luminous dissertation on the insecurity of Mining Companies, Gas Shares, Railway Investments, Patent Inventions, and all the other treacherous quick-sands, and sloughs of despair, into which men have plunged headlong in their quenchless, never-dying pursuit of the delusive phantom-gold. Cursed are they as the son of Jupiter, who in his fierce torments sees the cool, clear waters bubbling round him, yet cannot slake his feverous thirst. Insatiable as the daughters of the horse-leech, who cry "Give! give!" the more they are glutted with their fell banquet. Oh, it made my heart sore to see the grasping, eager look of mute attention with which that boy was fastening on each word that dropped from his father's lips! Surely at any period the illimitable love of wealth must ever be regarded as one of the most grovelling and debasing passions which fetter us to this earth, and clog our every nobler aspiration. But, that in the full flush of youth and health when to our buoyant spirits life itself appears an El Dorado, and we float our bark gaily on the stream of time as on a Pactolus, where pleasure's golden sands on either side seem but to wait our outstretched hands to grasp them, that in these days it should have power to weave its fatal spell around us, and ensnare us in its specious toils, appears to me dire, portentous, unnatural! How much longer this edifying conversation might have continued I know not; but Mrs. Sidney broke in upon it by saying to her husband, "Charles, do look at Viola; see, how brilliantly your present shows in her hair." Mr. Sidney leisurely drew forth his memorandum book, inserted some figures therein, and then turning round, looked fixedly at his daughter for a few seconds, and said, "Come and kiss me, Viola." This from him was something wonderful. I had never seen him spontaneously embrace his children; still he was a good father, solicitous for their welldoing-sparing no expense in their education, liberal in his gifts, most anxious for their happiness, or what he deemed ought to be their happiness; and yet I think his children rather feared and honoured than loved him. They would not run to meet him when he appeared, or climb his knee, or tell him of their little hopes and fears, their joys and sorrows; neither did he expect it from them. Mr. Sidney was a kind but not a fond father. He had never played with his children even in their earliest infancy,-never sat by their couch in sickness-never talked to them freely and unreservedly as I think a father should talk to his children- ; but I am rambling on, whilst the carriage is at the door, and Mrs. Sidney, having once more surveyed her daughter cap-à-pied, having taken out a pin only to replace it in the self-same angle it had previously formed, and having given her sundry exhortations as to folding her shawl, and many injunctions not to take cold, they departed. I did not feel inclined for rest, so I stayed up reading until three in the morning. I had left word that I should like to see Miss Sidney on her return. She therefore came to my room, looking pale and dispirited. "Well, dearest Viola," I exclaimed, " have you enjoyed yourself ?" 66 Oh, yes!" she said, languidly, "it was very pleasant, I suppose." Ι "You suppose! why, did you not dance ?” "Yes, yes! the whole evening. I am knocked up." "But who were your partners?" I asked eagerly. "Oh! don't, dear cousin Dorothy, be so merciless as to expect a catalogue raisonnée at this time of night, or rather morning; it would be an endless beadroll." 66 Well, but dear Viola, at least tell me, if there were not one among your partners whom you liked better than another; if you had any agreeable conver sation ?" "No," she replied, "unless you reckon as such sundry meteorological observations on the density and rarity of the atmosphere-the assurance that it had rained all day, and the confident prediction that it would be fine to-morrow. Then, to be sure, I was edified by an anatomical dissertation on the physical powers of the première danseuse, which I think might qualify me to pass my examination at the College of Surgeons. I believe this is all I heard; so good night, dear Cousin Dorothy. I am tired-I mean, I am weary. There is a vast difference between being weary and tired, but it is too late to be analytical. Good night! we will discuss it all to-morrow." The morrow came, and with it Mrs. Sidney. How different to her daughter's was her account of the evening's amusement. She was in high spirits. It appeared that Viola's début had been most triumphant. Mammas had looked apprehensive, their daughters splenetic and spiteful, elderly gentlemen had stared her out of countenance, and the young men, after casting a side-long glance at the adjoining mirror, giving an invigorating pull at their collars, and a |