cherish and fondle her viper sister, whom she has preposterously
taken into her bosom, to try stinging conclusions upon your constancy;
they must not complain if the house be rather thin of suitors. Scylla
must have broken off many excellent matches in her time, if she
insisted upon all, that loved her, loving her dogs also.

An excellent story to this moral is told of Merry, of Della Cruscan
memory. In tender youth, he loved and courted a modest appanage to
the Opera, in truth a dancer, who had won him by the artless contrast
between her manners and situation. She seemed to him a native violet,
that had been transplanted by some rude accident into that exotic and
artificial hotbed. Nor, in truth, was she less genuine and sincere
than she appeared to him. He wooed and won this flower. Only for
appearance' sake, and for due honour to the bride's relations, she
craved that she might have the attendance of her friends and kindred
at the approaching solemnity. The request was too amiable not to be
conceded; and in this solicitude for conciliating the good will of
mere relations, he found a presage of her superior attentions to
himself, when the golden shaft should have "killed the flock of all
affections else." The morning came; and at the Star and Garter,
Richmond--the place appointed for the breakfasting--accompanied with
one English friend, he impatiently awaited what reinforcements the
bride should bring to grace the ceremony. A rich muster she had made.
They came in six coaches--the whole corps du ballet--French, Italian,
men and women. Monsieur de B., the famous _pirouetter_ of the day, led
his fair spouse, but craggy, from the banks of the Seine. The Prima
Donna had sent her excuse. But the first and second Buffa were there;
and Signor Sc----, and Signora Ch----, and Madame V----, with a
countless cavalcade besides of chorusers, figurantes, at the sight
of whom Merry afterwards declared, that "then for the first time it
struck him seriously, that he was about to marry--a dancer." But there
was no help for it. Besides, it was her day; these were, in fact, her
friends and kinsfolk. The assemblage, though whimsical, was all very
natural. But when the bride--handing out of the last coach a still
more extraordinary figure than the rest--presented to him as her
_father_--the gentleman that was to _give her away_--no less a person
than Signor Delpini himself--with a sort of pride, as much as to
say, See what I have brought