, to which the miniature Arabella had placed before
his eyes so many years afterwards did but feeble justice, it may well
be conceived that he concentred on himself the admiring gaze of the
assembly. Jasper was younger than Arabella; but, what with the height of
his stature and the self-confidence of his air, he looked four or five
and twenty. Certainly, in so far as the distance from childhood may be
estimated by the loss of innocence, Jasper might have been any age! He
was told that old Fossett's daughter would have a very fine fortune;
that she was a strong-minded young lady, who governed her father, and
would choose for herself; and accordingly he devoted himself to Arabella
the whole of the evening. The effect produced on the mind of this
ill-fated woman by her dazzling admirer was as sudden as it proved to
be lasting. There was a strange charm in the very contrast between his
rattling audacity and the bashful formalities of the swains who had
hitherto wooed her as if she frightened them. Even his good looks
fascinated her less than that vital energy and power about the lawless
brute, which to her seemed the elements of heroic character, though
but the attributes of riotous spirits, magnificent formation, flattered
vanity, and imperious egotism. She was a bird gazing spell-bound on
a gay young boa-constrictor, darting from bough to bough, sunning its
brilliant hues, and showing off all its beauty, just before it takes the
bird for its breakfast.

When they parted that night, their intimacy had so far advanced
that arrangements had been made for its continuance. Arabella had
an instinctive foreboding that her father would be less charmed than
herself with Jasper Losely; that, if Jasper were presented to him,
he would possibly forbid her farther acquaintance with a young clerk,
however superb his outward appearance. She took the first false step.
She had a maiden aunt by the mother's side, who lived in Bloomsbury,
gave and went to small parties, to which Jasper could easily get
introduced. She arranged to pay a visit for some weeks to this aunt, who
was then very civil to her, accepting with marked kindness seasonable
presents of strawberries, pines, spring chickens, and so forth, and
offering in turn, whenever it was convenient, a spare room, and whatever
amusement a round of small parties, and the innocent flirtations
incidental thereto, could bestow. Arabella said nothing to her father
about Jasper Losely, and to