"I shall be most happy to listen to you."

"Well, then ... without farther apology I will explain myself. My name is Barnaby.... I am a widow of good fortune, and without children ... for I have lost both my little ones!" Here Mrs. Barnaby drew forth one of her embroidered handkerchiefs, as she always did when speaking of her children "which were not;" and this frequently happened, for she had a great dislike to being considered as one unblessed by offspring,—a peculiarity which, together with some others, displaying themselves in the same inventive strain, proved an especial blessing to Agnes, inasmuch as it made her absence often desirable. Having wiped her eyes, and recovered her emotion, she continued: "I have no children; ... but an elder sister ... so much older, indeed, as almost to be considered as my mother, ... died several years ago, leaving an orphan girl to my care. In truth, I am not a great many years older than my niece, and the anxiety of this charge has been sometimes almost too much for me.... However, she is a good girl, and I am most passionately attached to her. Nevertheless she has some peculiarities which give me pain, ... one is, that she will never wear any dress but the deepest mourning, thus consecrating herself, as I may say, to the memory of her departed parents. Now this whim, Mr. Pringle, shews her spirits to be in a state requiring change of scene, and it is on this account that I have left my charming place in Devonshire, in the hope that variety, and a gayer circle than is likely to be found in the immediate neighbourhood of a large mansion in the country, might be of service to her."

"Indeed, ma'am, I think you are quite right," replied Mr. Pringle. "What age is the young lady?"

"Just seventeen ... and I should have no objection whatever to take her into company ... and this is indeed the point on which I most wish for your advice. I came to Cheltenham, sir, fully expecting to find my friends the Gordons ... near relations of the Duke, and persons of first-rate fashion and consequence, who would at once have placed us in the midst of all that is most elegant in the way of society here.... But, by a letter they sent to