grâces naturelles scarcely require de assistance of votre bon gout! Vos lys e trs roses need not foreign aid of ornament, as your. Tonson has it; but I am obliged to take de little trip to Paris to get de novelty for my young ladies" (she meant her assistants); "my ladies do so teaze me to get dem someting new !"

Julia looked at the new-comer, who, from the profusion of flattery addressed to her, she concluded to be a valuable customer. Miss Isabel, or, as she had, for reasons unknown, new-christened herself, Belinda Birkit, of Bear Hall, was about twenty-five years of age, and aimed at the interesting; but Nature had refused her some of the most essential attributes of that character. The colour that, mantling in her cheeks, should have bespoken the sensibility, mutability, &c. of her too-exquisite feelings, had, either through mistake or wilful perverseness, formed a central junction in her nose, leaving said cheeks marbled with a pleasing variety of purple,

VOL. III.

H

purple, black, sallow, and white, which shewed, on a sharp and windy day, like the Mosaic floor of some marble-encrusted chapel; her lips, thick, dry, and of a dingy pompadour colour, reminded the observer of those arid soils in which a too-long-continued sun has made frequent fissures: still, as Isabel had good hair, good teeth, and a pretty person, she was declared, by all her female acquaintance, to be “an interesting, sweet, animated creature, and delightfully pleasant, when not shockingly

nervous."

She was now torturing the patience of the two poor sub-milliners, by alternately approving and rejecting every thing submitted to her choice. This was old-fashioned that was new, but horridly unbecoming; there was not a colour in the shop suited to her complexion; and being that day in an economical fit, she found out also that every thing was unconscionably dear.

Wearied out at length with her inces

sant

sant caprice, Miss Popham exclaimed to her often-reiterated complaints, that nothing she tried on was becoming." Really, ma'am, I don't believe there is any thing in our shop that would become you!"

"Fi donc, Miss Pop!" again exclaimed madame Coquelicot, knitting her brow. But this time it was in good earnest, for she was in mortal fear of offending and losing a powerful family-no less than all the Birkits of Bear Hall. The sally, however, appeared to be unheeded by the dignified Belinda, or perhaps her consciousness of having deserved it rendered her averse to drawing the notice of others upon it; it served only to expedite her morning's transactions; and after her various criticisms, she consigned a considerable number of articles of millinery to the old family-coach that was waiting at the door. i

The superior Jane Sanderson, who had chosen madame Coquelicot's magazin as the

the proper place for the study of a dictionary of the Spanish language, and, with a book in her hand, had hitherto seemed as abstracted as an Indian fakeer from all that was going on, no sooner perceived Isabella Birkit at liberty to attend to her, than she went up and whispered something in her ear. Advancing afterwards to Julia-" Miss Somerville," she said, "allow me the pleasure of introducing to you my dearest and most intimate friend; she will tell you herself how much she hopes that Mrs. Birkit will assist her in cultivating your acquaintance."

She then proceeded to inform Julia of Miss Isabella Birkit's reasons for adopting the more sentimental Christian name of Belinda, and concluded her eulogium, much to the astonishment of the two milliners misses, with reciting aloud the following apostrophe, which she applied to the attachment subsisting between herself and her friend

"Celestial

Celestial Happiness! whene'er she stoops
To visit earth, one shrine the goddess finds,
And one alone, to make her sweet amends
For absent heaven-the bosom of a friend *."

From this Julia understood that she was to consider Jane Sanderson and Isabella or Belinda Birkit as sworn and sentimental friends, and prepared to wait with patience the visit from her mother, which was thus pompously announced.

Meanwhile the ladies were preparing to leave the shop, when madame Coquelicot, anxious to attract more of Julia's attention, displayed to her view a very elegant scarf, and began recommending it with her utmost eloquence. It might perhaps have succeeded, but, unfortunately, at the very moment that madame Coquelicot was complacently setting forth its merits, as a perfect novelty from Paris, Julia recognised the fashion of it as having been herself its inventress, when, three years before, she had reigned the momen