cause of disappointment in the cold and measured tone of the communication, which she feels with all the sensitiveness of misfortune. The matter, however, is talked over in all its bearings, and by degrees a brighter light seems to break in upon them.

The father begins to consider that, although the aid offered is not precisely that which he desired, it is nevertheless an important assistance; and the mother soon loses sight of the affront to her own amour propre in the chilling tone in which the favour is proffered, when she thinks of the advantages it promises to her child. Both parents remember having noticed particularly the young ladies of Miss Wilson's establishment at church, their superior gentility both of appearance and deportment, and forthwith follows a bright daydream on the advantage of Maria's becoming a day-boarder at that establishment—thus securing the double benefit of the good education for herself, without losing the advantage of the evening instruction for her sisters, and the solace of her society to them all. A letter of thanks for the consideration of the uncle or cousin is cheerfully penned, a card of the terms of Miss Wilson's school is procured and enclosed, and, for one entire evening, the whole family rejoice together in the midst of their cares at this stroke of good-fortune.

For a whole week no reply is vouchsafed to the letter, and they begin to feel anxious lest some stray word or unconsidered sentence should have given offence to the persons they are most interested in conciliating. At length, however, they are relieved on this head: a brief note arrives, in which the writer regrets that they cannot fall into the plan sketched out by the parents; but as their motive in consenting to undertake the charge of the child at all, is to give her the means of securing her own livelihood in a respectable manner, they are of opinion that that object will be best attained by removing her altogether from her own family, and placing her as half-boarder, for a term of years, in some well-known school, for which they are already on the look-out. The letter concludes by professing, with extreme humility, that should this arrangement not coincide with the parents' views, they would by no means desire its adoption; in which case, however, it is very clearly intimated, they would of course feel themselves relieved from any further responsibility in the matter.

The dictatorial tone and startling brevity of this communication fall like an ice-bolt on the assembled group. The first impulse of the father is to reject the offer altogether; but when he looks on the anxious countenance of his child, he feels that he has no right to sacrifice her permanent benefit to a mere consideration of feeling on his own part. He accordingly smothers his resentment at the manner in which the boon is offered, and tries to rejoice that the comforts of a respectable home, and freedom from home cares and menial drudgery, are by any means secured to his child.

An anxious consultation next ensues on the subject of her outfit: the family wardrobe is produced in the little parlour; the least mended of the under-garments are selected, and a clean white tucker is appended to the well-worn best frock; the Sunday bonnet is relined with an eighteenpenny sarsnet, and retrimmed with a threepenny ribbon; the cost of half-a-dozen home-made muslin collars is calculated; and the propriety of a new merino frock is finally canvassed and determined on. The father looks on with an aching heart and a moistened eye as the last article of absolute necessity is provided for by a cheerful surrender, on the part of the mother, of her own squirrel boa and scarlet shawl.

A few days elapse, during which our heroine endeavours to soften the loss her absence will occasion in the household by redoubled diligence on her own part. The fortnight's wash is anticipated by a few days; she works early and late to mend up all the stockings; the children are doubly tasked on the score of lessons; the sister next in age to herself is enjoined to be very attentive to poor mamma, and the younger children to render due obedience to her deputy. On the evening of the Saturday following the father brings home a letter from his munificent relative, announcing that a school having been found for the child, she is to repair, on the Monday following, by Dawney's Wimbleton Coach, where a place for her has been taken and paid for, to their country-house; and intimating that it will not be necessary for the father to be at the trouble of accompanying her himself, as her safety has been secured by an order already issued to the gardener to be in attendance at the end of the avenue on the arrival of the vehicle.

The intervening Sunday is a day of restless anxiety to the whole family. Advice on the minutest particular of her future conduct is affectionately bestowed on our heroine. A faint attempt at cheerfulness is maintained by the whole circle, till the arrival of night and darkness permits each individual to give free vent to the pent-up feelings by an unrestrained burst of tears. The heart thus lightened of its load, they sleep calmly, and rise in the morning of separation conscious of a feeling of hope and cheerfulness, to which anxiety has kept them strangers since the first opening of the important negotiation.

The middle of Monday sees our heroine, for the first time in her life, surrounded by all the refinements of a well-appointed English gentleman's household. On her arrival she is conducted to the school-room of her young cousins, where she joins the party at dinner, and undergoes a somewhat unceremonious scrutiny on the part of the young ladies. They are good-natured, thoughtless girls, however; and though they do not fail to remark that her hands are rather coarse, and that she wants the self-possession of a lady, the circumstance is noted to each other in a carefully-subdued tone, and does not in anyway influence their kindly dispositions towards her. They exhibit, by way of amusing her, their toys and trinkets, and question her of her own possessions and attainments; but meeting with little response on this head, they try another resource, and considerately propose some merry game. The young novice, alas, has never had time to play! but she feels their kindness, and does her best to participate in the gaiety around her. The lady-mother returns from her drive barely in time to dress for dinner; and thus the awful period of introduction to her is deferred until the accustomed hour of dessert summons the denizens of the school-room and nursery to the dining-room.

I wish that truth would enable me to endow my heroine with that best letter of introduction—personal beauty; but what girl of her age was ever even pretty? The beautiful roundness of the features of childhood is past, and the skeleton only of womanhood has succeeded it: hence the falling-in chest, the long, thin arms, the bony ankles, the squareness of figure, and, above all, the vacant or anxious school-girl face. It is utterly impossible to conjure up beauty out of such materials; they belong less to the individual than to the age, and nothing short of time itself can remedy the evil. But when, to such disadvantages, a frightened awkwardness of manner is superadded, as in the present instance, by the unaccustomed appearance of everything around, and the consciousness of a dubious position, it is hardly to be expected that the result could be of a nature greatly to conciliate the favour of an indifferent, not to say prejudiced, spectator; and the reader, therefore, will not be surprised to learn that a reception perfectly civil, though rather cold, is all that awaits the protégée in the halls of her benefactors. The hostess fills her plate with fruit, and the host, without asking her consent, adds a glass of wine; and then both turn to listen to the wit of their own offspring, and talk over the events of the day. In the course of some half-an-hour the gentleman exhibits signs of an