his sentiments, he always contrived to interest them. There was not a
charming woman by whom this charming man did not seem just on the point
of being caught! It was like the sight of a splendid trout in a
transparent stream, sailing pensively to and fro your fly, in a willand-
a-won't sort of a way. Such a trout! it would be a thousand pities to
leave him, when evidently so well disposed! That trout, fair maid or
gentle widow, would have kept youwhipping the stream and dragging the
fly--from morning to dewy eve. Certainly I don't wish worse to my
bitterest foe of five and twenty than such a rival as Sedley Beaudesert
at seven and forty.

Fanny, indeed, perplexed me horribly. Sometimes I fancied she liked me;
but the fancy scarce thrilled me with delight before it vanished in the
frost of a careless look or the cold beam of a sarcastic laugh. Spoiled
darling of the world as she was, she seemed so innocent in her exuberant
happiness that one forgot all her faults in that atmosphere of joy which
she diffused around her. And despite her pretty insolence, she had so
kind a woman's heart below the surface! When she once saw that she had
pained you, she was so soft, so winning, so humble, till she had healed
the wound. But then, if she saw she had pleased you too much, the
little witch was never easy till she had plagued you again. As heiress
to so rich a father, or rather perhaps mother (for the fortune came from
Lady Ellinor), she was naturally surrounded with admirers not wholly
disinterested. She did right to plague them; but Me! Poor boy that I
was, why should I seem more disinterested than others; how should she
perceive all that lay hid in my young deep heart? Was I not in all--
worldly pretensions the least worthy of her admirers, and might I not
seem, therefore, the most mercenary,--I, who never thought of her
fortune, or if that thought did come across me, it was to make me start
and turn pale? And then it vanished at her first glance, as a ghost