getting nearer to the lady, and, despite
of himself, takes to whirling in the opposite direction. They
approach--they recede--she shrieks without being heard--holds out her
arms for help--she would drop them in despair, but cannot, for they are
twisted over her head by the tremendous force of the element. One
moment they are near to each other, and the next they are separated; at
one instant they are close to the abyss, and the waters below roar in
delight of their anticipated victims, and in the next a favouring change
of the vortex increases their distance from the danger--there they
spin--and there you may leave them, and commence a new chapter.

_A_. But is not all this naturally and physically impossible?

_B_. By no means; there is nothing supernatural in a whirlwind, and the
effect of a whirlwind is to twist everything round. Why should the
heroine and the Honourable Augustus Bouverie not be submitted to the
laws of nature? besides, we are writing a fashionable novel. Wild and
improbable as this whirlwind may appear, it is within the range of
probability: whereas, that is not at all adhered to in many novels--
witness the drinking scene in --, and others equally _outrees_, in which
the author, having turned probability out of doors, ends by throwing
possibility out of the window--leaving folly and madness to usurp their
place--and play a thousand antics for the admiration of the public, who,
pleased with novelty, cry out "How fine!"

_A_. Buy the book, and laud the author.

_B_. Exactly. Now, having left your hero and heroine in a situation
peculiarly interesting, with the greatest nonchalance, pass over to the
continent, rave on the summit of Mont Blanc, and descant upon the strata
which compose the mountains of the Moon in Central Africa. You have
been philosophical, now you must be geological. No one can then say
that your book is light reading.

_A_. That can be said of few novels. In most of them even smoke
assumes the ponderosity of lead.

_B_. There is a metal still heavier, which they have the power of
creating--gold--to pay a dunning tailor's bill.

_A_. But after being philosophical and geological, ought one not to be
a little moral.

_B_. Pshaw! I thought you had more sense. The great art of
novel-writing is to make the vices glorious, by placing them in close
alliance with redeeming qualities. Depend upon it, Ansard, there is a
deeper, more heartfelt satisfaction that mere