defenceless. She had now however but little opportunity of gratification; for though she had lived three years in Italy, she understood not a word of the language, and her attempts to amend the world being therefore made, in one not understood by those in whose favor they were exerted, were very little comprehended, and of course failed of affording her much satisfaction. Her talents being thus perforce confined to her own houshold, had taken another turn, and had been applied

to the acquisition of money, and of securing a good match for her daughter.
The Doctor, though really a man of some abilities, had not hitherto been successful enough in his profession to be enabled to give her a fortune: the project of marrying her well was equally interesting to him; and among the various patients he had received into his house since he resided at Naples, the elder son of a very opulent merchant in London, and an old Baronet, who had several daughters older than Miss Maclaurin, very narrowly escaped her multiform attractions by the impertinent remonstrances of their families.
Lord Castlenorth had no relations but Mrs. Willoughby, who was very unlikely to interfere in any matrimonial project; he had besides a much larger fortune, and was of a much higher rank, than any of those for whom the family of Maclaurin had intended the honor of their alliance; but the very circumstances which rendered the prospect of such a marriage most alluring,

seemed to preclude the probability of success.
Among the few things Lord Castlenorth had learned of his father, the principal was to value himself on his descent; and, as far as related to his own family, he was a genealogist almost as soon as he could speak. As he advanced in life, he found himself of so little consequence for individual merit, that he was compelled to avail himself of the names of his ancestors, from whom only he derived any importance at all; and the "puny insect shivering at a breeze," swelled with conscious pride when he recited the names of heroes from whom he had so woefully degenerated.
This pride of ancestry was now the most distinguishing feature in a character where it appeared with the greatest prominence, from the faintness and insipidity of the other traits, for being no longer able to pursue the dissolute manner of life which he had adopted rather from fashion than inclination,

he had now in other respects no character at all.
Miss Maclaurin, who began to study him as soon as he was received by her father, soon saw it, and saw it with dismay; for she supposed that it would be an insuperable bar to