men of her disposition and
station are compelled to show. Who has not seen how women bully women?
What tortures have men to endure, comparable to those daily repeated
shafts of scorn and cruelty with which poor women are riddled by the
tyrants of their sex? Poor victims! But we are starting from our
proposition, which is, that Miss Crawley was always particularly
annoying and savage when she was rallying from illness--as they say
wounds tingle most when they are about to heal.

While thus approaching, as all hoped, to convalescence, Miss Briggs was
the only victim admitted into the presence of the invalid; yet Miss
Crawley's relatives afar off did not forget their beloved kinswoman,
and by a number of tokens, presents, and kind affectionate messages,
strove to keep themselves alive in her recollection.

In the first place, let us mention her nephew, Rawdon Crawley. A few
weeks after the famous fight of Waterloo, and after the Gazette had
made known to her the promotion and gallantry of that distinguished
officer, the Dieppe packet brought over to Miss Crawley at Brighton, a
box containing presents, and a dutiful letter, from the Colonel her
nephew. In the box were a pair of French epaulets, a Cross of the
Legion of Honour, and the hilt of a sword--relics from the field of
battle: and the letter described with a good deal of humour how the
latter belonged to a commanding officer of the Guard, who having sworn
that "the Guard died, but never surrendered," was taken prisoner the
next minute by a private soldier, who broke the Frenchman's sword with
the butt of his musket, when Rawdon made himself master of the
shattered weapon. As for the cross and epaulets, they came from a
Colonel of French cavalry, who had fallen under the aide-de-camp's arm
in the battle: and Rawdon Crawley did not know what better to do with
the spoils than to send them to his kindest and most affectionate old
friend. Should he continue to write to her from Paris, whither the army
was marching? He might be able to give her interesting news from that
capital, and of some of Miss Crawley's old friends of the emigration,
to whom she had shown so much kindness during their distress.

The spinster caused Briggs to write back to the Colonel a gracious and
complimentary letter, encouraging him to continue his correspondence.
His first letter was so excessively lively and amusing that she should
look with pleasure for its successors.--"Of course, I