had opened a conversation with Fanny, I
approached my chair towards the other, and having carelessly turned over
the leaves of the book she had been reading, drew her on to talk of it. As
my acquaintance with young ladies hitherto had been limited to those who
had "no soul," I felt some difficulty at first in keeping up with the
exalted tone of my fair companion, but by letting her take the lead for
some time, I got to know more of the ground. We went on tolerably together,
every moment increasing my stock of technicals, which were all that was
needed to sustain the conversation. How often have I found the same plan
succeed, whether discussing a question of law or medicine, with a learned
professor of either! or, what is still more difficult, canvassing the
merits of a preacher or a doctrine with a serious young lady, whose
"blessed privileges" were at first a little puzzling to comprehend.

I so contrived it, too, that Miss Matilda should seem as much to be making
a convert to her views as to have found a person capable of sympathizing
with her; and thus, long before the little supper, with which it was the
major's practice to regale his friends every evening, made its appearance,
we had established a perfect understanding together,--a circumstance that,
a bystander might have remarked, was productive of a more widely diffused
satisfaction than I could have myself seen any just cause for. Mr. Burton
was also progressing, as the Yankees say, with the sister; Sparks had
booked himself as purchaser of military stores enough to make the campaign
of the whole globe; and we were thus all evidently fulfilling our various
vocations, and affording perfect satisfaction to our entertainers.

Then came the spatch-cock, and the sandwiches, and the negus, which Fanny
first mixed for papa, and subsequently, with some little pressing, for Mr.
Burton; Matilda the romantic assisted _me_; Sparks helped himself. Then we
laughed, and told stories; pressed Sparks to sing, which, as he declined,
we only pressed the more. How, invariably, by-the-bye, is it the custom to
show one's appreciation of anything like a butt by pressing him for a song!
The major was in great spirits; told us anecdotes of his early life in
India, and how he once contracted to supply the troops with milk, and made
a purchase, in consequence, of some score of cattle, which turned out to be
bullocks. Matilda recited some lines from Pope in my ear. Fanny challenged
Burton