both the girls at once. "He's neither handsome, nor rich, nor any thing."

"Nor any thing!" repeated Mrs. Mervale, laughing. "Well, that's comprehensive. A young man may be a very respectable young man, and be a very fair match for a girl without being either handsome or rich; but if he is positively 'nothing,' why, then, I grant you, it is bad indeed."

"Oh, I believe he is respectable enough," replied Augusta, carelessly, for, like most young girls, the word "respectable" did not rank very high in her vocabulary.

"And if he is not rich, what are they to live on," asked Mrs. Mervale.

"Love and the law, I suppose," replied her daughter, laughing. "He's a lawyer, is he not Augusta?"

"Oh!" resumed Mrs. Mervale, "he's a son, then, I suppose, of old John Hazlewood."

"Yes," replied Augusta.

"Then he may do very well in his profession," continued Mrs. Mervale, "for his father has a large practice I know, and is a very respectable man. If this is a clever young man, he may tread in his father's footsteps."

This did not convey any very high eulogium to the young ladies' ears. That young Robert Hazlewood might be an old John Hazlewood in his turn and time, did not strike them as a very brilliant future. In fact they did not think more of the old man than they did of the young one.

Old gentlemen, however, were not at quite such a discount with Mrs. Mervale as with her daughter and her friend; and she continued to descant upon the high standing of Mr. Hazlewood the elder, not one word in ten of which the girls heard, for she, like most old ladies, once started upon former times, was thinking of the pleasant young John Hazlewood of early days, who brought back with him a host of reminiscences, with which she indulged herself and the girls, while they, their heads full of last night's party and Mary Morton and Robert Hazlewood, listened as civilly as they could, quite unable to keep the thread of her discourse, confounding in her history Robert Hazlewood's mother with his grandmother, and wondering all the while when she would stop, that they might resume their gossip.

"You visit his sister, Mrs. Constant, don't you?" asked Augusta.

"Yes, we have always visited the Hazlewoods," replied Angila, "but I am not intimate with any of them. They always seemed to me those kind of pattern people I dislike."

"Is Mr. Constant well off?" inquired Mrs. Mervale.

"No, I should think not," replied Angila, "from the way in which they live. They have a little bit of a two-story house, and keep only a waiter girl. How I do hate to see a woman open the door," she continued, addressing Augusta.

"So do I," replied her friend. "I would have a man servant—a woman looks so shabby."

"Yes," returned Angila. "There's nothing I dislike so much. No woman shall ever go to my door."

"If you have a man servant," suggested Mrs. Mervale.

"Of course," said Angila; "and that I will."

"But suppose you cannot afford it," said her mother.

"I don't choose to suppose any thing so disagreeable or improbable," replied her daughter, gayly.

"It may be disagreeable," continued Mrs. Mervale, "but I don't see the improbability of the thing, Angila, nor, indeed, the disagreeability even. The Constants are young people with a small family, and I think a woman is quite sufficient for them. Their house is small, I suppose."

"Oh, yes, a little bit of a place."

"Large enough for them," replied Mrs. Mervale, whose ideas were not as enlarged as her daughter's.

"Perhaps so," said Angila, "but I do hate low ceilings so. I don't care about a large house, but I do like large rooms."

"You can hardly have large rooms in a small house," remarked Mrs. Mervale, smiling.

"Why, Mrs. Astley's is only a two-story house, mamma, and her rooms are larger than these."

"Yes, my dear, Mrs. Astley's is an expensive house; the lot must be thirty feet by—"

But Angila had no time to go into the dimensions of people's "lots." She and Augusta were back to the party again; and they discussed dresses, and looks, and manners, with great goût.

Their criticisms were, like most young people's, always in extremes. The girls had either looked "lovely" or "frightful," and the young men were either "charming" or "odious;" and they themselves, from their own account, had been in a constant state of either delight or terror.

"I was so afraid Robert Hazlewood was going to ask me to waltz," said Angila; "and he waltzes so abominably that I did not know what I should do. But, to my delight, he asked me only for a cotillion, and I fortunately was engaged. I was so glad it was so."

"Then you did not dance with him at all?"

"No—to my great joy, he walked off, angry, I believe."

"Oh, my dear!" remonstrated her mother.

"Why not, mother," replied Angila. "He's my 'favorite aversion.' Well, Augusta," she continued, turning to her friend, "and when do you sail for New Orleans?"

"On Monday," replied Augusta.

"On Monday!—so soon! Oh, what shall I do without you, Augusta!" said Angila, quite pathetically. "And you will be gone six months, you think?"

"Yes, so papa says," replied the young lady. "He does not expect to be able to return before May."

"Not before May! And its only November now!" said Angila, in prolonged accents of grief. "How much may happen in that time!"

"Yes," returned her friend, gaily, "you may be engaged before that."

"Not much danger," replied Angila, laughing.

"But remember, I am to be bridemaid," continued Augusta.

"Certainly," said Angila, in the same tone, "I shall expect you from New Orleans on purpose."

"And who will it be to, Angila," said Augusta.

"That's more than I can tell," replied Angila; "but somebody that's very charming, I promise you."

"By the way, what is your beau ideal, Angila, I never heard you say," continued Augusta.

"My beau ideal is as shadowy and indistinct as one of Ossian's heroes," replied Angila, laughing; "something very distinguished in air and manners, with black eyes and hair, are the only points decided on. For the rest, Augusta, I refer you to Futurity," she added, gayly.

"I wonder who you will marry!" said Augusta, with the sudden fervor of a young lady on so interesting a topic.

"I don't know, only nobody that I have ever seen yet," replied Angila, with animation.

"He must be handsome, I suppose," said Augusta.

"No," replied Angila, "I don't care for beauty. A man should have a decided air of the gentleman, with an expression of talent, height, and all that—but I don't care about what you call beauty."

"You are very moderate, indeed, in your requirements, my dear," said her mother, laughing. "And pray, my love, what have you to offer this rara avis in return for such extraordinary charms."

"Love, mamma," replied the gay girl, smiling.

"And suppose, my dear," pursued her mother, "that your hero should set as high an estimate upon himself as you do upon yourself. Your tall, elegant, talented man, may expect a wife who has fortune, beauty and talents, too."

Angila laughed. She was not vain, but she knew she was pretty, and she was sufficiently of a belle to be satisfied with her own powers if she could only meet with the man, so she said, playfully.

"Well, then, mamma, he won't be my hero, that's all."

And no doubt she answered truly. The possession of such gifts are very apt to vary in young ladies' eyes according to the gentleman's perception of their charms. And heroes differ from one another, according as the pronouns "mine and thine," may be pre-fixed to his title.

"And such a bijou of a house as I mean to have," continued Angila, with animation. "The back parlor and dining-room shall open into a conservatory, where I shall have any quantity of