lights in the branches, my lady," she replied, in an apologetic tone, in answer to an interrogative look of lady Louisa's.

Dillon departed; her ladyship resumed -"I thought, Geraldine, you were above the puerile affectation of wishing to be esteemed a novel heroine, and to have the credit of refusing two or three lords without a single rational reason for doing so."

"Your ladyship did me but justice," replied Geraldine, still more deeply blushing. "I am no novel heroine; but I consider it as essential to my happiness in married life, that my husband be possessed of a character and talents, to which I could willingly look up as to my superior."

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Oh, Geraldine!" exclaimed lady Louisa, with a naïveté that had its rise in heartrending recollections," I married genius, wit, and talent; and was I therefore the happier ?”

"Did you say you would have supper to-night, my lady?" said Dillon, again presenting herself unexpectedly before them. "No!

K 3

"No! you

well know I never have sup per here," lady Lousia replied, in an accent of displeasure, for she knew how to account for the officious waiting-woman's frequent intrusions. "I will dispense with your attendance till I ring."

Mrs. Dillon sighed, made up the fire, fidgeted round the room, and at length, but most reluctantly, withdrew.

Lady Louisa looked round, with an expression of great irritation in her countenance." On nous écoute," she said in French, and continued the conversation in that language.

Geraldine observed that many circumstances had combined that night to displease her, and marked the rising storm in the increasing petulance of her ladyship's voice, and the acrimony of her expressions. Still she defended herself, sometimes seriously, sometimes playfully; and at last, on lady Louisa's desiring her to give an instance of what she called the defectiveness of lord Templemore's education, cited some anecdotes

anecdotes that Diana Pendennis had told her, which proved his lordship to be, indeed, in the rudiments of learning.

“Et vous la croyez donc plutôt que moi,” interrupted her ladyship, with tremulous eagerness," et vous ne songez pas ne songez pas à quel point elle est méchant"

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Méchante, lady Louisa!" said a soft voice from the inner room. Sir Charles Southwell, who, in the country at least, always observed his physician's recommendation of early hours, had been already some time in his chamber, which was only separated from his lady's dressing-room by a partition. He took this mode at once of informing her, that he had overheard her obliging reflections upon genius, wit, and talent," and of indulging, by a polite and gentle correction, his own partiality for the French language-a partiality which did not permit him to let an error in gender pass with impunity.

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"This is too much!" exclaimed lady Louisa, irritated out of all self-command

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may

by the mildness and sang-froid with which her well-bred husband made his little verbal amendment, and then, if she might judge by the subsequent silence, betook himself to sleep. Every body is combined to-night to distract me; and that man's insulting coolness, when I am most provoked, however it make you smile, Miss Geraldine, is one among his many arts of giving pain." She then overwhelmed poor Geraldine with a torrent of reproaches, which, because undeserved, were not the less deeply felt. After such a scene, it may easily be imagined that she retired pale and trembling to her chamber, and that she spent a sleepless night.

Geraldine awoke in the morning, her mind full of confused impressions of the late disagreeable occurrences, and could not forbear asking herself the question"Shall I risk my present tranquillity, by plunging into the great world, where so many more occasions for envy, anger, or solicitude, may present themselves, in the

train, and wholly under the guidance, of a woman who has a heart to will the happiness of all around her, but a temper which often renders that goodness of heart of no avail?" But what alternative had Geraldine? Two years must elapse before she would come of age, and be put in possession of her fortune, which was about twelve thousand pounds. In the meantime she had no choice but to reside in the family of sir Charles Southwell, who was her guardian, or that of a wine-merchant in Dublin, who was joint trusteea man to whose family, character, and manners, she was an utter stranger.

While ruminating on these unpleasant circumstances with all the deep thought and intense susceptibility of nineteen, a temporary relief was brought to her perplexity by the receipt of the following billet:-

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"Mount Amaranth.

MY DEAR AND LOVELY GERALDINE, "I am at this moment quite a