five and twenty tables,

and the company of "titled Dowagers and Yellow Admirals."
"If this unfortunate mania seized her, it was not wonderful that it extended itself to us. Emily had a very fine voice, and the Miss Elphinstones had concerts to which she was invited. We both had learned among ourselves to act parts of plays; the Miss Elphinstones had at their house at Ealing a private theatre, and we were promoted to parts in their drama. Looking upon us as inferior to them in our persons, in our education, in our family and in our fortunes, no idea of rivalry ever disturbed this intercourse, and insensibly we passed more time with them than we did at home; whither I should always have returned with murmurs and regret, if it had not been the only place where I could meet young Elphinstone without witnesses, the only place where some folly of the moment did not seem to make him forget the preference he professed to give me.

"Such was the situation of the two families, when the eldest son of the Elphinstone's, the gentleman who had been distinguished at Westminster by the appellation of 'Squire Squashy, arrived from a twelvemonth's tour in France and Italy, and with him a sort of tutor who had been sent with him at a very exorbitant salary. To all the native arrogance and invincible stupidity of his original character, this elder brother had added the pertness of fancied knowledge and the consciousness of travelled superiority; a more disgusting character could hardly be imagined. He was now not only above all the rest of the world, but infinitely above his own family: his mother was silenced by—"Good Madam! how is it possible you should know?" his father, by a silent shrug of contempt and a disdain of argument; while his sisters, who piqued themselves upon their elegance and fashion, were ridiculed for being si bourgoise, that they were hardly within the possibility of being made commeil

faut. As to my sister and myself, who were with them when he arrived, he looked at us once through his opera glass, enquired who we were, and hearing we were the daughters of his father's merchant and lived in the city, he never, on any occasion that I can recollect, deigned to notice us again. Unhappily, the gentleman who had travelled and who still continued with him, saw with different eyes my poor little Emily, then not quite fifteen: he affected to be highly pleased with her singing, and undertook to give her instructions. He would teach us both French, and corrected our