her presence; her wishes were his laws, and so sedulously was her accommodation or her pleasure anticipated, that if she were always to have lived only with Mr. Willoughby, it seemed that hands, and feet, and thought, would have been superfluous to Isabella.

How natural was it for a girl hitherto checked, controled, held down, without a choice even in the colour of a ribbon, or the power of command in the slightest instance, to be at once astonished and intoxicated with her situation: Isabella was both; but she was something more; she was abashed with the triumph that she believed she had attained. She could not believe that she owed such excess of happiness to any merits or charms of her own it was the goodness, the kindness of Mr. Willoughby alone from which it flowed; and while she loved

him the better for the thought, she became timid lest he should discover some imperfection in her, which might make her less worthy in his eyes, of that ardour of affection, on which she was now sensible that all her future happiness must depend. What now were splendour and riches to her?to live always with Mr. Willoughby, and thus to live with him, bounded her ideas of felicity.

But was it so with Mr. Willoughby? -to him there was a world beyond Beech Wood. The first, the second, the third, nay even the fourth week was past, and neither satiety nor weariness had been felt.-Oh might it always be so!--thought the too well-experienced Mr. Willoughby-and he felt that the charm was broken.

The fifth week was ushered in with, "My dear Isabella, we must not always live so I must not seclude you

thus from the world -our friends will think that we mean to bury ourselves

alive it is really high time not only

to enjoy, but to celebrate our union."

Isabella thought that the enjoyment was the best celebration - but she did not say so she was modest and retiring, and knew not how to presume to appropriate wholly to herself what she thought so well suited to make the happiness of many.

"It would indeed be wrong that you should live in seclusion," said she.

"Oh we should neither of us like it," replied Mr. Willoughby,-and began immediately to write his letters of invitation, desiring Isabella, that she would summon her mother and sisters to their Christmas party.

"We must have Lady Charlotte," said Mr. Willoughby, "and-dire necessity! that fool her husband too.

That fair cousin of yours, Isabella,

I fear has paid too dear for her whistle."

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Why should you think so?" said Isabella. "I really believe that she likes Mr. Dunston. At least, I am quite sure she chose to marry him; for she always did what she pleased, in spite of my uncle. Lady Stanton would never suffer her to be contradicted.

"Like Dunston!" exclaimed Mr. Willoughby, "oh! no, that's impossible. Lady Charlotte has better taste: take my word for it she knows that Dunston is a low-bred fool; one who disgraces his birth, low as it is. He was a kind of a pis aller, I take it."

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What, at one and twenty?" returned Isabella. "With so much beauty, with so many charms, as Lady Charlotte possesses?"

"You young Ladies," said Mr. Willoughby, fondly patting the cheek of Isabella, "attach a great deal of glory

to doing your business quickly. Lady Charlotte, with all her beauty, and all her charms, had seen more than one competitor who had started with her reach the goal before her; and I suspect that she was not unapprehensive of being distanced by her sweet little cousin here," said he, gently drawing Isabella towards him.

Isabella coloured a deep crimson. All the petty jealousies and heartburnings that had ever been between them rushed into her mind, and a consciousness that she had been complimented on having robbed her cousin of her favourite admirer, completed her confusion.

"You look terribly guilty, my dear Isabella," said Mr. Willoughby. "What! you did not suspect that I was such an adept in the arcana of your sex ?"

"Indeed I have no arcana," replied