I have.

THE REV. DR. FOLLIOTT.

LADY CLARINDA.

Is she pretty?

THE REV. DR. FOLLIOTT.

Ne

More,-beautiful. A subject for the pen of Nonnus, or the pencil of Zeuxis. Features of all loveliness, radiant with all virtue and intelligence. A face for Antigone. A form at once plump and symmetrical, that, if it be decorous to divine it by externals, would have been a model for the Venus of Cnidos. ver was any thing so goodly to look on, the present company excepted, and poor dear Mrs. Folliott. She reads moral philosophy, Mr. Mac Quedy, which indeed she might as well let alone; she reads Italian poetry, Mr. Skionar; she sings Italian music, Mr. Trillo; but, with all this, she has the great

est of female virtues, for she superintends the household, and looks after her husband's dinner. I believe she was a mountaineer: παρθένος ουρεσίφοιτος, ἐρήμαδι σύντροφος ὕλῃ, as Nonnus sweetly sings.

* A mountain-wandering maid,

Twin-nourished with the solitary wood.

CHAP. XVIII.

CHAINMAIL HALL.

Vous autres dictes que ignorance est mere de tous maulx, et dictes vray: mais toutesfoys vous ne la bannissez mye de vos entendemens, et vivez en elle, avecques elle, et par elle. C'est pourquoy tant de maulx vous meshaignent de jour en jour.

RABELAIS, 1. 5. c. 7.

THE party which was assembled on Christmas-day in Chainmail Hall, comprised all the guests of Crotchet Castle, some of Mr. Chainmail's other neighbours, all his tenants and domestics, and Captain Fitzchrome. The hall was spacious and lofty; and with its tall fluted pillars and pointed arches, its windows of stained glass, its display of arms and banners intermingled with holly and

misletoe, its blazing cressets and torches, and a stupendous fire in the centre, on which blocks of pine were flaming and crackling, had a striking effect on eyes unaccustomed to such a dining-room. The fire was open on all sides, and the smoke was caught and carried back, under a funnel-formed canopy, into a hollow central pillar. This fire was the line of demarcation between gentle and simple, on days of high festival. Tables extended from it on two sides, to nearly the end of the hall.

Mrs. Chainmail was introduced to the company. Young Crotchet felt some revulsion of feeling at the unexpected sight of one whom he had forsaken, but not forgotten, in a condition apparently so much happier than his own. The lady held out her hand to him with a cordial look of more than forgiveness'; it seemed to say that she had much to thank

T

him for. She was the picture of a happy bride, rayonnante de joie et d'amour.

Mr. Crotchet told the Reverend Doctor Folliott the news of the morning. “As you predicted," he said, "your friend, the learned friend, is in office; he has also a title; he is now Sir Guy de Vaux."

THE REV. DR. FOLLIOTT.

Thank heaven for that! he is disarmed from further mischief. It is something, at any rate, to have that hollow and windshaken reed rooted up for ever from the field of public delusion.

MR. CROTCHET.

I suppose, Doctor, you do not like to see a great reformer in office; you are afraid for your vested interests.

THE REV. DR. FOLLIOTT.

Not I, indeed, sir; my vested interests are