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veriest persiflage by the rare faculty of attuning itself to the mood of the hearer. At one moment her tones are full of melting sweetness, at another, ringing with mirth; again gravely subdued, or breaking forth into a gush of silvery, but never loud, laughter; and now and then as she speaks, her aromatic breath touches the cheek that bows towards her and sets the listener's pulses throbbing in rapturous tumult.

The very rustling of her dress, as it sweeps along, has an alarum sound, that cries, "follow!" and truly a motley procession follows at the signal. The modern Alcisthenes walks arm in arm with the high priest of science; the laureled hero and head with cap and bells loom out, side by side, the Solon of the bench hobbles to keep pace with the springy step of the brainless exquisite.

Have we conveyed the impression that Amanda owes her fascination to the "fatal gift" of superlative beauty? That is an error. Strictly handsome she can scarcely be called; but she is so piquantly, picturesquely irresistible in face, and form, and mien, and ways, that the faultless beauty, who aspires to be a rival in her absence, flies the field, the instant that Amanda appears. Her supremacy lies in a kind of bewildering witchery, which makes itself felt in the very opening and shutting of her fan, the motion of her delicate hand, the transient peeping of her small foot from beneath her ample drapery, the heaving of her alabaster breast, ay,