canvas for Sir
Hildebrand?"

"I love my uncle," was her reply: "I owe him some kindness (such it was
meant for at least), and I will leave you to draw his picture yourself,
when you know him better."

"Come," thought I to myself, "I am glad there is some forbearance. After
all, who would have looked for such bitter satire from a creature so
young, and so exquisitely beautiful?"

"You are thinking of me," she said, bending her dark eyes on me, as if
she meant to pierce through my very soul.

"I certainly was," I replied, with some embarrassment at the determined
suddenness of the question, and then, endeavouring to give a
complimentary turn to my frank avowal--"How is it possible I should think
of anything else, seated as I have the happiness to be?"

She smiled with such an expression of concentrated haughtiness as she
alone could have thrown into her countenance. "I must inform you at once,
Mr. Osbaldistone, that compliments are entirely lost upon me; do not,
therefore, throw away your pretty sayings--they serve fine gentlemen who
travel in the country, instead of the toys, beads, and bracelets, which
navigators carry to propitiate the savage inhabitants of newly-discovered
lands. Do not exhaust your stock in trade;--you will find natives in
Northumberland to whom your fine things will recommend you--on me they
would be utterly thrown away, for I happen to know their real value."

I was silenced and confounded.

"You remind me at this moment," said the young lady, resuming her lively
and indifferent manner, "of the fairy tale, where the man finds all the
money which he had carried to market suddenly changed into pieces of
slate. I have cried down and ruined your whole stock of complimentary
discourse by one unlucky observation. But come, never mind it--You are
belied, Mr. Osbaldistone, unless you have much better conversation than
these _fadeurs,_ which every gentleman with a toupet thinks himself
obliged to recite to an unfortunate girl, merely because she is dressed
in silk and gauze, while he wears superfine cloth with embroidery. Your
natural paces, as any of my five cousins might say, are far preferable to
your complimentary amble. Endeavour to forget my unlucky sex; call me Tom
Vernon, if you have a mind, but speak to me as you would to a friend and
companion; you have no idea how much I shall like you."

"That would be a bribe indeed," returned I.

"Again!" replied Miss Vernon, holding up her finger; "