"Poor Miss Turton!" exclaimed Lady Anne, laughing; "her flirtations are all like an ill-made squib with no little pop at the end."

"Then she thought herself engaged to Mr. Fitzgerald," continued Lord Iona, becoming more and more enlivened. "He held the Episcopal Chapel

at Inverness, and turned out to have been, from the first, a Jesuit Priest performing Protestant services 44 by special dispensation from his superior. That is quite a common manœuvre now, against the Episcopal Church: and Mr. Fitzgerald, as a blind to conceal his being a Popish Priest, pretended he was engaged to poor deluded Miss Turton. The Duke of Dorchester blew up the mine by recognising Mr. Fitzgerald as Father Dominick, from the College of the Sacred Heart, at Naples."

“That was Priest-craft and Jesuit-craft indeed!" exclaimed Beatrice with irrepressible indignation. "If the Saints of Rome be such men, what must the sinners be!"

"But Miss Turton, being thrown out of all other situations, is now finally devoted to celibacy and Father Eustace!" added Lord Iona, watching the effect of what he said on Lady Anne, who coloured slightly and looked down. "When your confessor enters the room it becomes evident that the whole heart and soul of Miss Turton are engrossed with almost adoring interest, in catching his every word and action! In her estimation he is

evidently a perfect demi-god, and as those whose feelings are most excitable on some points are naturally most excitable on all, your worthy governess has given up all her 'speculations,' for the one absorbing object of pleasing Father Eustace. Look now at her St. Agnes expression in gazing with adoration at this picture of St. Anthony, by Teniers! What an extravagant ostentation of reverential gestures she is making!

"What a tongue you have!" said Lady Anne, unable to resist the influence of her cousin's lively humour, and recovering her usual careless grace of manner. "I wonder in the convent how she will manage a long broom!"

"If she merely shut a door it was in an attitude fit to play the harp in, with simpering face and downcast eyes; but I have a vision before me now, of poor dear Miss Turton, next week virtuously walking to her convent chapel over the snow, without shoes or stockings, and living in a trance without food, till she become so spiritualized, that she is visibly suspended a little way up in the air, telling her beads at about a yard from the ground. She might as well attempt climbing to heaven on a rope of sand as to ascend by all her own absurd affectations.

"Ah, Miss Turton !" said he, looking as amusingly malicious as a young kitten. "We were just talking of you! It quite spoils you being in such rude health now, for there is nothing I admire so

much as a graceful invalid; and it is a sad blunder to wear coloured flowers in your bouquet-they are reckoned quite vulgar now. They should all be pure white. I could not have supposed you making such a mistake."

"No one has a more off-hand way of saying unpleasant truths-if they are truths-than you, my Lord!" replied Miss Turton with a stage laugh, but looking excessively angry; while trying not to seem ashamed of her brilliant bouquet. “But I shall be very soon beyond the reach of every earthly annoyance."

66 Well, Miss Turton, take the advice of an old enemy. Be a ballad-singer in the streets rather than put your head into that conventual noose from which there is no deliverance but death. You might remain the most single of all single ladies without any irrevocable vow. I shall place some value on my own good sense if it preserve you from that bourne whence no proselyte returns. I, George Lord Iona, should be appointed adviser-general to all the mothers and daughters in England. What dreadfully good reason can there be for

I feel really ill-used at darkness, and to me.

your forsaking us all? your leaving the world to There are one or two things

in this world that I cannot obtain any more than yourself; but why on that account give up all, and retire in a pet?"

Miss Turton bestowed her favourite smile on

Lord Iona, and looked charmingly confused, for she really fancied that the young heir of Eaglescairn united with all mankind in admiring her. Even the transparency of his ridicule had failed entirely to enlighten her, as to his satirical contempt, and starting up soon after, she made her exit from the room with simpering affectation, tripping across the floor in a style which eclipsed all her previous performances, and might have petrified Cerito or Carlotta Grisi, while Lord Iona with a most unamiable cough and satirical smile, directed Lady Anne's eyes to watch Miss Turton, looking more fit for a lunatic asylum than for a religious institution. "How well she would do in a tableau ! Could we not get up a few scenes? I am excellent in charades! I may announce myself as an actor who never could obtain an engagement in any theatre-who has been hissed off the stage by an envious world every time I attempted to appear, who is warranted always to forget his part, who though unable to get up a good prologue, can contrive to give a bad epilogue, and could finish with a tremendous explosion on the flute."

"You, George, who are as Byron said of such another rattle-pated mortal, "an ignorant, noteless, timeless, tuneless, fellow!" We could not trust you to be candle-snuffer, or you would snuff all the candles out!"

"What envy and detraction, cousin Anne! but

those like me who stand upon a pedestal must expect to have stones thrown at them! A propos of throwing stones: Father Eustace has been acting the political firebrand at Clanmarina, and worked up the Papists there into such a ferment of superstitious terror and excitement that election will be riotous as an Irish fair. There are not stones enough on the road for the Protestant windows, and Father Eustace yesterday denounced Lady Edith from the pulpit."

Mr. Clinton had arrived before dinner, but he kept obviously aloof from that part of the room where Lady Edith sat, and seemed desirous to appear perfectly unconscious of her presence, while deeply engaged in conversation with Father Eustace. That wily priest, who knew his time for all things, and could be a perfect Proteus, stern or submissive on the shortest notice-firm as a rock, or pliant as a willow-felt, or rather feigned such an interest in Mr. Clinton's opinions, looking into his spectacles with such an air of profound reverence, that the two remained in apparently endless discussions together, during which the cunning Father allowed Mr. Clinton, like an unpractised gamester, to gain every point at first in order to his losing all at last.

"Father Eustace is a man of supernatural intellect, yet he quite looks up to my husband for his extraordinary acquirements;" whispered Mrs.