that passes at a ball, and if you do not relish being interrupted in the thread of the story, such as it is, skip a page or two. As for me, I will write it, because it may suit the fancy of some readers, and it is an amusement to me to do so.

The colloquists were a gentleman and young lady. Thd former began-"So I hear you do not mean to dance to-night. How comes that?"

"I am not very well, and do not wish to tire myself."

"I am sorry for it. I meant to have asked you to dance with me."

"It is very unlucky that you should have pitched upon the only night that I have been unable to dance this year. However, I am not sorry to sit still, as it diverts me to hear the conversation of those that surround me."

"You are a person of singular taste. I believe you would prefer at any time sitting silently listening to two great men talking over the affairs of the nation, or two blues, cogitating over geology, ornithology, or some other ology, to talking to some one of your own standing."

"I do not see that there is any thing very extraordinary in that."

"Why, most girls like to talk to the young men, and are wretched if they have not this resource at their beck."

"You should not say that to me: you know I ought

to take up the cudgels for my own sex, and prove incontestably that your's is the very last thing we ever think of. However, that would entail upon me so very long a disquisition, that I will not attempt it. You must acknowledge that hearing two great men, as you call them, talking about something worth hearing, is much more agreeable than the common routine of ball conversation with which you young gentlemen are so good as to favour us. Besides, I am so tired of the old story, 'Did you ever see such a quiz as Mrs. is to night? I declare it surpasses every thing I ever saw. Just look at her, now do ! and then an individual, perhaps, is pointed out with a hat and feathers, all going different ways; some to the detriment of her vision, some to that of her neighbours, some unavoidably inducing a tickling sensation, which those only who are laudable enough to 'souffrir pour être belle,' have strength of mind to endure. Be it as it may, I cannot own to caring a straw how Mrs. looks, and when I am addressed in that tone, lamentably often fail in discovering any thing worth the trouble of looking for."

Such is frequently the description of conversation that passes at balls, thus pointless and devoid of interest. But though this is a specimen, I must confess that the last remark of the young lady is one that I have made internally many a time myself, which coincidence probably caused me to remember it so accurately. How often have I at a theatre been im

portuned by my companion to look at some object which had caught his eye, either for the singularity of its attire, or its resemblance to a friend, in the middle of the pit below, or perched in the boxes above us, and been plagued for an hour with directions how and where to look, and been made to count the nineteenth person in the twelfth row, in order to see something I had not the smallest desire to behold, and at a time when I had much rather have looked on the stage, or the play-bill, or at any rate sat quiet.

It requires something very much above par, either in the way of beauty or singularity, (ugliness will do, if to excess) to make it worth a person's while to strain his eyes to penetrate to the utmost verge of a theatre or ball-room, at the suggestion of his companion.

My digression is now over, reader, and I return to my story. The London season did, this year, like every other, draw to a close, and even Julia began to think they might as well take their departure for Graham Court, and to Graham Court accordingly they

went.

It may be asked how I could have allowed my hero and heroine to be so long together in the same town, and yet have made no mention of the former. The fact is, that the intercourse which took p'ace between them, was of so ordinary a description, so entirely devoid of quarrels, mysterious conversations, huffs, in short all things worthy of a novel, that I have not

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dared to introduce it. They met often in the most common place and rational manner. They as often talked over their mutual prospects, and discussed the advantages and disadvantages of Arthur's going to India. After having well weighed the matter, it was finally decided that he should join his uncle there, provided he procured his father's consent, and that his departure should be delayed only until that permission was obtained. His uncle enjoyed a lucrative situation in the East Indies, and had often invited his nephew to visit him there, holding out, that in such case, he might probably make the young man his heir. The old gentleman, however, was a sort of person on whose words no great dependence could be placed, and his intention of to-day, might vanish with to-morrow's sun. Arthur's main hope therefore rested more on his powers of realizing something in the position his uncle should think fit to place him, than on that uncle's good intentions in his favour.

Such was the state of affairs between them when Alice left London. Arthur's letter to his family was already despatched; he felt little doubt that their consent would be obtained, and in that conviction the lovers took leave of each other, with the probability, nay, almost the certainty, of being widely separated for many a long year.

It may be imagined, that with no great feeling of exhilaration did poor Alice return to the home from which she had been so long absent. There were other

sources of sorrow here too. She had not been at Graham Court since her mother's death; every thing there reminded her so forcibly of the loved being she had lost, that the sensation on arriving was one of unmitigated pain. Her mother was in every part of it. The garden, the well-known beds, the shape and planting of which they had so often discussed together; the flowers that Alice had put in with her own hand under her mother's direction; the seat where she used to sit, enjoying the air and sunshine without incurring fatigue; the very chair in the drawing-room which she was wont to occupy, her work table, every thing she saw brought back to her mind the image of her mother with a vividness that well nigh overcame her. Her father and sister were not unmoved at the sight of all this, and the first evening of their arrival was consequently a silent and a melancholy one. All were glad to seek the solitude of their own room, and there to give way for a while to those feelings of sorrow and sadness which each thought it an imperative duty to control in the presence of the other.

Thank God! the greatest grief we can experience has a limit. It may and does subdue the mind, and in some it works a complete change; but in none is the impression of so lasting a nature as to render the remainder of a life miserable to its possessor.

In process of time the inmates of Graham Court became accustomed to the melancholy recollections which gathered around them, and to resume, by de