t Miss Simper.

"Do you know what it is, Mr. Oaklands?" asked the second Miss Simper.

"I'm sure he does, he looks so delightfully wicked," added the eldest
Miss Simper, shaking her ringlets in a fascinating manner, to evince her
faith in the durability of their curl.

The eldest Miss Simper had been out four seasons, and spent the last
winter at Nice, on the strength of which she talked to young men of
themselves in the third person, to show her knowledge of the world,
and embodied in her behaviour generally a complete system of
"Matrimony-made-easy, or the whole Art of getting a good Establishment,"
proceeding from early lessons in converting acquaintances into flirts,
up to the important final clause--how to lead young men of property to
propose.

"Really," replied Oaklands, "my face must be far more expressive
and less honest than I was aware of, for I can assure you they have
studiously kept me in the dark as to the meaning."

"But you have made out some idea for yourself; it is impossible that it
should be otherwise," observed the second Miss Simper, who had rubbed
off some of her shyness upon a certain young Hebrew Professor at the
last Cambridge Installation, and become rather blue from the contact.

"Have you?" said the youngest Miss Simper, who, being as nearly a fool
as it is possible to allow that a pretty girl of seventeen can be,
rested her pretensions upon a plaintive voice and a pensive smile, which
went ~351~~ just far enough to reveal an irreproachable set of teeth,
and then faded away into an expression of gentle sorrow, the source of
which, like that of the Niger, had as yet remained undiscovered.

"Oh, he has!" exclaimed the eldest Miss Simper; "that exquisitely
sarcastic, yet tantalising curl of the upper-lip, tells me that it is
so."

"Since you press me," replied Oaklands, "I confess, I believe I have
guessed it."

"I knew it--it could not have been otherwise," exclaimed the blue belle
enthusiastically.

The youngest Miss Simper spoke not, but her appealing glance, and a
slight exhibition of the pearl-like teeth, seemed to hint that some
mysterious increase of her secret sorrow might be expected in the event
of Oaklands' refusing to communicate the results of his penetration.

"As I make it out," said Harry, "the first scene was Inn, the second
Constancy, and the third Inconstancy."

"Ah! that wretch John, he was the Inconstancy," observed the eldest Miss
Simper, "marrying for mone