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in womanly fashion, to the most ardent wooer. An eligible partner, of course, none but eligible men venture into the arena, to struggle for such a prize. Probably, she looked upon marriage as an inevitable necessity, the unavoidable, and very endurable, destiny of womanhood; and, with only sufficient reluctance to intensify her charms, she permitted the most devout worshipper to claim her as his idol, and enshrine her in his luxurious establishment; though certainly not with the potential understanding that his exclusive adoration could satisfy the needs of her soul.

Melinda's marriage with Mr. Belmont, if it wrought any change in her deportment towards other gentlemen, only rendered her more thoroughly at her ease in their society, more alluring, more delightful! Her sallies of wit gained piquancy, her manner acquired more perfect abandon, her beauty more brilliant expression. Always wilful and exigeante, she now grew half-imperious in appropriating devotion, as though she looked upon men in general as more entirely her slaves than before she assumed the unfelt chain which bound her to one man in particular. Consequently the willing vassals became more liberal of those "sweet observances," those nameless indescribable attentions so gratifying to a woman's self-love, because they tacitly exalt her to a pedestal, and lay such harmless tributes upon the altar of her vanity.