down all the wrath of Ireland upon the writer's
head), and which said that the greatest rascal-cut-throats have had
somebody to be fond of them, and if those monsters, why not ordinary
mortals? And with whom shall a young lady fall in love but with the
person she sees? She is not supposed to lose her heart in a dream, like
a Princess in the Arabian Nights; or to plight her young affections
to the portrait of a gentleman in the Exhibition, or a sketch in the
Illustrated London News. You have an instinct within you which inclines
you to attach yourself to some one: you meet Somebody: you hear Somebody
constantly praised: you walk, or ride, or waltz, or talk or sit in
the same pew at church with Somebody: you meet again, and again,
and--"Marriages are made in Heave," your dear mamma says, pinning your
orange-flowers wreath on, with her blessed eyes dimmed with tears--and
there is a wedding breakfast, and you take off your white satin and
retire to your coach-and-four, and you and he are a happy pair.--Or, the
affair is broken off, and then, poor wounded heart! why, then you meet
Somebody Else, and twine your young affections round number two. It is
your nature so to do. Do you suppose it is all for the man's sake that
you love, and not a bit for your own? Do you suppose you would drink if
you were not thirsty, or eat if you were not hungry?

So then Laura liked Pen because she saw scarcely anybody else at
Fairoaks except Doctor Portman and Captain Glanders, and because his
mother constantly praised her Arthur, and because he was gentlemanlike,
tolerably good-looking and witty, and because, above all, it was of her
nature to like somebody. And having once received this image into her
heart, she there tenderly nursed it and clasped it--she there, in his
long absences and her constant solitudes, silently brooded over it
and fondled it--and when after this she came to London, and had an
opportunity of becoming rather intimate with Mr. George Warrington,
what on earth was to prevent her from thinking him a most odd, original,
agreeable, and pleasing person?

A long time afterwards, when these days were over, and Fate in its
own way had disposed of the various persons now assembled in the dingy
building in Lamb Court, perhaps some of them looked back and thought how
happy the time was, and how pleasant had been their evening talks
and little walks and simple recreations round the sofa of Pen the
convalescent. The Major had a f