nesses like you; and we give
notice that there are no perfect characters in this history, except,
perhaps, one little one, and that one is not perfect either, for she
never knows to this day that she is perfect, and with a deplorable
misapprehension and perverseness of humility, believes herself to be as
great a sinner as need be.

This young person does not happen to be in London at the present period
of our story, and it is by no means for the like of her that Mr. Henry
Foker's mind is agitated. But what matters a few failings? Need we be
angels, male or female, in order to be worshipped as such? Let us admire
the diversity of the tastes of mankind; and the oldest, the ugliest, the
stupidest and most pompous, the silliest and most vapid, the greatest
criminal, tyrant booby, Bluebeard, Catherine Hayes, George Barnwell,
amongst us, we need never despair. I have read of the passion of a
transported pickpocket for a female convict (each of them advanced in
age, being repulsive in person, ignorant, quarrelsome, and given to
drink), that was as magnificent as the loves of Cleopatra and Antony,
or Lancelot and Guinever. The passion which Count Borulawski, the Polish
dwarf, inspired in the bosom of the most beautiful Baroness at the Court
of Dresden, is a matter with which we are all of us acquainted: the
flame which burned in the heart of young Cornet Tozer but the other day,
and caused him to run off and espouse Mrs. Battersby, who was old enough
to be his mamma,--all these instances are told in the page of history or
the newspaper column. Are we to be ashamed or pleased to think that our
hearts are formed so that the biggest and highest-placed Ajax among
us may some day find himself prostrate before the pattens of his
kitchen-maid; as that there is no poverty or shame or crime, which will
not be supported, hugged even with delight, and cherished more closely
than virtue would be, by the perverse fidelity and admirable constant
folly of a woman?

So then Henry Foker, Esquire, longed after his love, and cursed the fate
which separated him from her. When Lord Gravesend's family retired to
the country (his lordship leaving his proxy with the venerable Lord
Bagwig), Harry still remained lingering on in London, certainly not much
to the sorrow of Lady Ann, to whom he was affianced, and who did not in
the least miss him. Wherever Miss Clavering went, this infatuated young
fellow continued to follow her; and being aware that his