I would as soon see a bailiff as a beauty; they are both equally duns."

Miss Linley's dear friend laughed, and said, with a great effort to look good-tempered, "That is both a rough compliment and a smooth one, but it is all Miss Linley's: she is the only beauty here."

"It seems that we are playing at the game," observed Markham. "The second pair of compliments is almost as good as the first."

46

And neither of them are mine," said Miss Linley; they were appropriated to beauty, not to me."

It may be seen that Miss Linley had grown humble as Winchester increased in arrogance; the natural consequence of his principle.

66

But, pink is such a sweet colour," said the dear friend.

66

It is too gaudy," said Winchester; "it tires the eye, and fatigues the imagination."

"But it harmonizes so sweetly with fair delicate complexions-"

"I do not like fair delicate complexions, they are tiresome."

"And is a lovely contrast to blue eyes."

"I never look at blue eyes," replied Winchester.

You must be blind yourself," added the lady with another good-tempered laugh, "or you would have seen that Miss Linley has not only a blooming dress, but a complexion of the lily, and violet eyes."

"I beg her pardon," said Winchester; "she must forgive me, for I had forgotten all about it. Besides, a man cannot help his tastes."

Miss Linley rose and left the table with an air of inexpressible mortification.

"Too bad!" cried Markham,-" too cruel! to find fault not only with her dress, but with her person!”

"I think I may order the chaise a couple of hours earlier. Half-measures are of no use. You know I do every thing on principle."

The next glimpse which the friends had of the lady was conclusive: she had changed her dress. Markham was greatly irritated.

66

Is it for such a wo

man as this," he exclaimed, "and this slave of your's was my tyrant!"

Winchester was involuntarily flattered. "Positively, Markham, I am in danger. There is no resisting such condescension. I could find in my heart to make a fool of myself, after all."

"At what time shall I order the chaise ?" asked Markham, a little pointedly.

"It must be evening now," Winchester replied. "I thought that I had reached the boundary-line of Miss Linley's capacity to submit, but I find myself mistaken. My principle has proved so true that I must now take up the contrary position. I know that it cannot fail me, so I go to put it to the proof."

On the same principle, though reversed, Winchester acted. He became himself the slave, that Miss Linley might again resume the tyrant.

The lady was fairly intoxicated with her triumph. She believed that she had conquered.

As to Winchester, he had assumed a far more difficult part than that which he had abandoned. There was a natural impertinence about him, which he found it difficult to restrain, but he succeeded.

The coquette was again the tyrant. She smiled and frowned; pouted and fretted; was silent or loquacious, to the full measure of her heart's content; and Winchester followed her about like a lamb in a silken string.

Even Markham was deceived. "I shall go without you, Winchester; I do not envy you your position, but I cannot bear to stay and see it."

66

I told you,

was the reply, "that you might order the chaise at eight."

It wanted but a quarter to the hour.

Winchester was

lounging at Miss Linley's side; he looked at his watch. "Why?" she asked, "are you making an arithmetic of minutes ?"

"No; I was thinking of the Ides of March."

"Have they come?”

"Come, but not gone."

"I do not understand you."

"No, nor I you."

"What is there doubtful?"

"You have spent five minutes without speaking to me."

"Is that unpardonable?"

66

Wholly, unless you tell me that you spent them in thinking of me."

"I was thinking only of my flowers."

Winchester took an exotic bouquet from her hand, and tore the beautiful flowers into atoms.

"Barbarian!" exclaimed the lady, half angry, half flat

tered.

"You have heaped up unkindness upon me within the last hour."

"I am not bound to be always smiling. Besides, remember that you told me you should grow tired of a perpetual smile."

"Well, I acknowledge that there is kindness in remembering my sentiments and acting upon them. So you frowned to please me; it was a delicate compliment.' “No; if I frowned at all, it would be to please myself."

"And my feelings?"

"Are in your keeping."

"Are they not beyond it?" and Winchester tried to look tenderly.

"At all events, that is your affair, not mine."

"I said you were unkind."

"You are difficult to please. Neither words nor silence give you satisfaction."

"The silence should be filled with kind thoughts; the words with kind meanings."

"Certainly; but, why for you?"

"You promised me not to speak to Markham tonight."

Unless I were tired of you."

"Would you kill me with such a supposition?" "I should like to see whether the certainty would kill

"Null and void."

The coquette could not resist the

opportunity of exercising her power.

"I am serious!"

"So am I, and, to prove it-" Miss Linley beckoned to Markham.

"If you speak to him, I leave you.”

"Do you threaten me?"

66

No, but myself-and for ever!"

"Well, good-bye."

Markham approached. Miss Linley smiled sweetly upon him, such a smile as once brought him to her feet. "Mr. Markham," said the lady, "I cannot endure to see you looking so painfully grave, especially," and she looked modestly down, "while I reproach myself with being the unworthy cause. This is a more commodious seat than the one which you have quitted: will you not take it?"

Markham's face was an index of wounded feeling. "Madam," he said, "it is better that I should leave your presence altogether, for, I confess that in it I cannot either look or feel otherwise than pained and sorrowful. I forgive you," he added, in real emotion, "I forgive you the agony of spirit which what has been play to you has caused me, and I earnestly hope that the feelings of an honest man may never again be within your power."

"And good-bye," Winchester added, "good-bye, and, as I threatened you, for ever. I say nothing of my feelings; for, if there can be sympathy where there are no feelings, I must sympathize with you, for I have none. As to affairs of the heart, they are all milk and water, and fit only for boarding-school misses. You will not regret me, because I am only the shadow. Markham was the substance. Adieu! adieu !"

Markham bowed profoundly, and walked sorrowfully away; Winchester retired backward, with an impertinent reverence, as from the presence of majesty.

Miss Linley sank on her sofa almost annihilated. Who can tell what an echo her heart gave back to the sound of their chariot-wheels!

IRELAND PICTURESQUE AND ROMANTIC.

BY LEITCH RITCHIE, ESQ.

Change in Dublin Society-Carriages-Gentility-Moral Comparison with the English-Irish Vanity-Origin of Irish Impudence-Portrait of the Irish Gentleman-Of the Irish Jontleman-Of the Irish Lady-Of the Irish Leedy.

DUBLIN may be considered a modern city, since it was not till the reign of James I. that brick or stone was used for private houses. In the year 1790, according to Watson's Almanack, ninety-six Irish peers had town houses in Dublin; and this was the case also with almost all the members of the House of Commons, whose incomes were averaged by Grattan at four thousand pounds a year each. At present, there are only seven or eight resident peers, most of them prelates; and the incomes of the resident gentry might be fairly averaged at a very few hundreds.*

It would be out of place to discuss here the question of the effect of this change upon the trade of the city; but a little speculation may be permitted upon its influence on the manners of the inhabitants. It seems to me that the gentry of Dublin are too small and unimportant a body to present that almost impassable barrier of caste which they do elsewhere. The attempts at encroachment by the lower ranks are constant, because they are successful; and, with a still greater affectation of what is called gentility than in other large towns, we find here a very extraordinary degree of republicanism in the constitution of society.

* An intelligent correspondent of the Dublin Penny Journal -a work which does honour to Dublin and to Ireland-say, £200, and estimates the loss to the city at half a million a year,