ength heard, the ladies, as usual, immediately
withdrew; and of course the first thing Amelia did when she got to her room
was to run to the glass to see how she had been looking: when, grievous to
relate, she found an angry hot spot in the act of breaking out on her nose.

What a distressing situation for a young lady, especially one with a
spectacled suitor. 'Oh, dear!' she thought, as she eyed it in the glass,
'it will look like Vesuvius itself through his formidable inquisitors.'
Worst of all, it was on the side she would have next him at dinner, should
he choose to sit with his back to the fire. However, there was no help for
it, and the maid kindly assuring her, as she worked away at her hair, that
it 'would never be seen,' she ceased to watch it, and turned her attention
to her toilette. The fine, new broad-lace flounced, light-blue satin
dress--a dress so much like a ball dress as to be only appreciable as a
dinner one by female eyes--was again in requisition; while her fine arms
were encircled with chains and armlets of various brilliance and devices.
Thus attired, with a parting inspection of the spot, she swept downstairs,
with as smart a bouquet as the season would afford. As luck would have it,
she encountered his lordship himself wandering about the passage in search
of the drawing-room, of whose door he had not made a sufficient observation
on leaving. He too, was uncommonly smart, with the identical dress-coat Mr.
Spraggon wore, a white waistcoat with turquoise buttons, a lace-frilled
shirt, and a most extensive once-round Joinville. He had been eminently
successful in accomplishing a tie that would almost rival the sticks
farmers put upon truant geese to prevent their getting through gaps or
under gates.

Well, Miss Amelia having come to his lordship's assistance, and eased him
of his candle, now showed him into the drawing-room; and his hands being
disengaged, like a true Englishman, he must be doing, and accordingly he
commenced an attack on her bouquet.

'That's a fine nosegay!' exclaimed he, staring and rubbing his snub nose
into the midst of it.

'Let me give you a piece,' replied Amelia, proceeding to detach some of the
best.

'Do,' replied his lordship, banging one hand against the other, adding,
'I'll wear it next my heart of hearts.'

In sidled Miss Emily just as his lordship was adjusting it in his
button-hole, and the inconstant man immediately chopped over to her.

'Well, now, that _i