for he had only two sons--one at college, the other as brave a
sailor as ever lived, and now in the Mediterranean: but perhaps you are
some relation of his?"

He had just concluded this speech, and before I had time to reply to it,
the door opened, and Miss Somerville entered. We have all heard a great
deal about "love at first sight;" but I contend, that the man who would
not, at the very first glimpse of Emily Somerville, have fallen
desperately in love with her, could have had neither heart nor soul. If
I thought her lovely when she lay in a state of insensibility, what did
I think of her when her form had assumed its wonted animation, and her
cheeks their natural colour? To describe a perfect beauty never was my
forte. I can only say, that Miss Somerville, as far as I am a judge,
united in her person all the component parts of the finest specimen of
her sex in England; and these were joined in such harmony by the skilful
hand of Nature, that I was ready to kneel down and adore her.

As she extended her white hand to me, and thanked me for my kindness, I
was so taken aback with the sudden appearance and address of this
beautiful vision, that I knew not what to say. I stammered out
something, but have no recollection whether it was French or English. I
lost my presence of mind, and the blushes of conscious guilt on my face
at that moment, might have been mistaken for those of unsophisticated
innocence. That these external demonstrations are often confounded, and
that such was the case on the present occasion, there can be no doubt.
My embarrassment was ascribed to that modesty ever attendant on real
worth.

It has been said that true merit blushes at being discovered; but I have
lived to see merit that could not blush, and the want of it that could,
while the latter has marched off with all the honours due to the former.
The blush that burned on my check, at that moment, would have gone far
to have condemned a criminal at the Old Bailey; but in the countenance
of a handsome young man, was received as the unfailing marks of "a pure,
ingenuous soul."

I had been too long at school to be ashamed of wearing laurels I had
never won; and, having often received a flogging which I did not
deserve, I thought myself equally well entitled to any advantages which
the chances of war might throw in my way; so having set my tender
conscience at rest, I sat myself down between my new mistress and her
father, and made a mos