Then Miss Robinson had a "pretty fortune" of five thousand pounds entirely at her own disposal; and the only possible manner of accounting for her protracted "single blessedness," was by the supposition that either some "disappointment" had occurred in early life, which she was too proud or too independent to turn to advantage, or that she had been "over nice" in making her election, and discovered now that people might be too fastidious for the rapidity with which youth and bloom wing their cruel flight.

This at least was the way in which the point was decided by general report, and how the case really stood is not material to our present purpose to determine. The reader may perhaps imagine that Miss Ferret was not of such a grade in society, as to admit of her insinuating herself amongst the guests in a baronet's house, and that her ambition, confined to an humbler walk, would scarcely aspire so high as to rule the destinies of two such people as Miss Robinson and Mr. Hartland, but the fact was otherwise. A downright country neighbourhood, far removed from metropolitan fastidiousness, admits of occasional mixtures unknown to high life in town, and when we consider that the Ferret family, of which Jemima was the last remnant, had lived with credit, and voted steadily for Sir Roger during a course of years, as also that Miss Ferret's central position close to the market-place, afforded her opportunity of forestalling the scanty and uncertain supplies of fish, sweetbreads, and other delicacies which are the pivots on which turns the fame of a dinner entertainment in a remote situation, it cannot surely surprise any reasonable person that Miss Ferret should often be invited to mount her pony, and with her dinner dress tied in a handkerchief, and suspended from the pummel, solicited to partake of the good cheer which her late and early vigilance had provided. She was, besides, a woman of address. If she passed a carriage on the road, she drew her veil over her face, and never rode up to the front door.

She had likewise a permanent deposit of flowers, feathers, and furbelows, which were left in a bandbox at Colbrook, under the guardianship of Lady Goodman's maid, with whom she was a prime favourite; as, however multifarious the concerns on her hands, she never forgot to slip a volume of the last novel into her bundle for Mrs. Hopkins. If a servant was to be hired, Miss Ferret inquired the character; if a bargain was to be had, Miss Ferret heard of, and recommended it to her friends, and when all her various utilities were performed, the dulce was not neglected. Enriched with a countless fund of on dits, and freighted with charades, epigrams, epithalamiums, and pasquinades, this active member of society defied all the powers of dulness to produce stagnation of tongues, whenever she was one of the company.

Well, in brisk spirits and iron-sided health, after executing a list of commissions, half a yard in length, for Lady Goodman, off cantered Miss Ferret, in joyous anticipation of a pleasant week at Colbrook. Her reception was gladdening. "My dear creature, welcome," said Lady Goodman, "you are actually my right hand; I do not know what in the world I should do without you. Did you remember the wax candles, and the snuff for Sir Roger, and the cards, and my watch which I sent to have a new crystal, and did you pay Farquar's bill?"

"I have done, ordered, and paid every thing."

"Welcome, my dear, a thousand times!" replied Lady Goodman; "come, and tell me all the news."

"Ah! Ferret," exclaimed Sir Roger, who entered at this moment, "I rejoice to see you. Sad weather this; I have been as dead as ditch water, I can tell you, and am glad that you are come to keep me awake. The glass too is rising; you bring good luck with you; but here is Mr. Hartland riding up the avenue; I must go and meet him."

"Oh! I'm glad that you have asked Mr. Hartland; that's a nice man; I've seen a great deal of him lately," said Miss Ferret, as she turned to Lady Goodman; "but have'nt you got Miss Robinson with you? I long to see her: How does she look? when did she come? does she stay long?"

"She arrived on Wednesday, stays a month, and I never saw her looking better," answered Lady Goodman.

"A nice thing," said Miss Ferret, "if we could make up a match between Mr. Hartland and Miss Robinson, wouldn't it, Lady G.?"

"So it would;" replied her Ladyship; "but though your fame stands high, I think you'll hardly have ingenuity to bring that matter to bear. They say that he's not at all a marrying man, and if he's one of the bashful fraternity, there will not be time to get over the horrors of presentation to a stranger, before Harriet will leave us to go to her sister in Scotland."

"We must only not lose time," said Miss Ferret, "but make hay while the sun shines."

The door opened, and Sir Roger presented Mr. Hartland to the ladies. Though not an elegant man, there was nothing either coarse or revolting in his demeanour. On the contrary, he comported himself extremely well, in a plain and equable manner, without effort or perturbation, whatever were the society into which he happened to fall. A phlegmatic temperament, combining with constitutional prudence, and his mother's counsel, had preserved Mr. Hartland in early life from those exciting circumstances which often plunge young people into love entanglements; and incredible as it may seem to those who have been differently situated, it is not the less true, that he had lived so little in mixed society, and had been so little in the way of flirtation, that no rumour of marriage had ever been coupled with his name; and thus at an age when others have handed over their sensibilities to a new generation, this serene and unaffected man was only commencing his career of life, with all the simplicity of untried youth.

The company assembled; and such as have experienced the up-hill work of conversation at a country dinner, when the subjects of weather, crops, the moon, and the roads are pumped dry, will easily believe, that if Miss Ferret were not the most polished woman in the world, her animation rendered her, notwithstanding, the most agreeable ingredient upon many occasions, in those assemblies which her presence enlivened. She had the art to shake a drawing-room together, if we may use such a simile; and wherever she was she contrived to prevent that stratification of men and women which madame de Staël has so happily described, as characteristic of an English provincial half hour before dinner. Miss Ferret had seen the last newspaper, or talked with "an intelligent man who had stepped from the coach" in the precise moment of her setting out; or she had heard a paragraph read from a London letter; or had a conference with the post-master immediately before she quitted home; in short she knew something either true or false, which no one else happened to know, of every thing and every body. Thin and active, she glided about the room, and brought people into actual contact who had never interchanged a look till she appeared. Like the grouting of a wall she compacted and cemented what was nothing but a heap of loose disjointed stones, till her vivacious tongue poured in its eloquence amongst them.

When the glad announcement was sounded, that dinner was served, Miss Ferret, who had laid her plan of operations, commenced them by keeping up such a cross fire of talk, while the company were in the act of descending the stairs, that by the time they reached the dining-parlour, she now marshalled the guests without being perceived by any one, and contrived to slide herself into a chair between Miss Robinson and Mr. Hartland. The more obvious arrangement which, by placing the gentleman in the centre, would have given both ladies an equal claim on his attention, might not have been so judicious; but by Miss Ferret's disposition of affairs, she constituted herself the "soft intermediate" through whom any intercourse held by the extremes must pass; and she was thus