LADY CLARINDA.

Next to Mr. Skionar, sits Mr. Chainmail, a good-looking young gentleman, as you see, with very antiquated tastes. He is fond of old poetry, and is something of a poet himself. He is deep in monkish literature, and holds that the best state of society was that of the twelfth century, when nothing was going forward but fighting, feasting, and praying, which he says are the three great purposes for which man was made. He laments bitterly over the inventions of gunpowder, steam, and gas, which he says have ruined the world. He lives within two or three miles, and has a large hall, adorned with rusty pikes, shields, helmets, swords, and tattered banners, and furnished with yew-tree chairs, and two long old worm-eaten oak tables, where he dines with all his household, after the fashion of his favorite age.

He wants us all to dine with him, and I be

lieve we shall go.

CAPTAIN FITZCHROME.

That will be something new at any rate.

LADY CLARINDA.

Next to him is Mr. Toogood, the co-operationist, who will have neither fighting nor praying; but wants to parcel out the world into squares like a chess-board, with a community on each, raising everything for one another, with a great steam-engine to serve them in common for tailor and hosier, kitchen and cook.

CAPTAIN FITZCHROME.

He is the strangest of the set, so far.

LADY CLARINDA.

This brings us to the bottom of the table, where sits my humble servant, Mr. Crotchet the younger. I ought not to describe him.

CAPTAIN FITZCHROME.

I entreat

you

do.

LADY CLARINDA.

Well, I really have very little to say in his

favor.

CAPTAIN FITZCHROME.

I do not wish to hear any thing in his favor; and I rejoice to hear you say so, be

cause

LADY CLARINDA.

Do not flatter yourself. If I take him, it will be to please my father, and to have a town and country-house, and plenty of servants, and a carriage and an opera-box, and make some of my acquaintance who have married for love, or for rank, or for any thing but money, die for envy of my jewels. You do not think I would take him for himself. Why he is very smooth and spruce, as far as his dress goes; but as to his face, he looks as

if he had tumbled headlong into a volcano,

and been thrown up again among the cinders.

CAPTAIN FITZCHROME.

I cannot believe, that, speaking thus of him, you mean to take him at all.

LADY CLARINDA.

Oh! I am out of my teens. I have been very much in love; but now I am come to years of discretion, and must think, like other people, of settling myself advantageously. He was in love with a banker's daughter, and cast her off on her father's bankruptcy, and the poor girl has gone to hide herself in some wild place.

CAPTAIN FITZCHROME.

She must have a strange taste, if she pines for the loss of him.

LADY CLARINDA.

They say he was good-looking, till his

bubble-schemes, as they call them, stamped him with the physiognomy of a desperate gambler. I suspect he has still a penchant towards his first flame. If he takes me, it will be for my rank and connexion, and the second seat of the borough of Rogueingrain. So we shall meet on equal terms, and shall enjoy all the blessedness of expecting nothing from each other.

CAPTAIN FITZCHROME.

You can expect no security with such an adventurer.

LADY CLARINDA.

I shall have the security of a good settlement, and then if andare al diavolo be his destiny, he may go, you know, by himself. He is almost always dreaming and distrait. It is very likely that some great reverse is in store for him: but that will not concern me, you perceive.