n impulse from the heart. I am sorry to say that the main difference
was this,--distress always seemed to accumulate round Sir Sedley, and
vanish from the presence of Trevanion. Where the last came, with his
busy, active, searching mind, energy woke, improvement sprang up. Where
the first came, with his warm, kind heart, a kind of torpor spread under
its rays; people lay down and basked in the liberal sunshine. Nature in
one broke forth like a brisk, sturdy winter; in the other like a lazy
Italian summer. Winter is an excellent invigorator, no doubt, but we all
love summer better.

Now, it is a proof how lovable Sir Sedley was, that I loved him, and yet
was jealous of him. Of all the satellites round my fair Cynthia, Fanny
Trevanion, I dreaded most this amiable luminary. It was in vain for me
to say, with the insolence of youth, that Sir Sedley Beaudesert was
of the same age as Fanny's father; to see them together, he might have
passed for Trevanion's son. No one amongst the younger generation was
half so handsome as Sedley Beaudesert. He might be eclipsed at first
sight by the showy effect of more redundant locks and more brilliant
bloom; but he had but to speak, to smile, in order to throw a whole
cohort of dandies into the shade. It was the expression of his
countenance that was so bewitching; there was something so kindly in its
easy candor, its benign good-nature. And he understood women so well! He
flattered their foibles so insensibly; he commanded their affection with
so gracious a dignity. Above all, what with his accomplishments, his
peculiar reputation, his long celibacy, and the soft melancholy of
his sentiments, he always contrived to interest them. There was not a
charming woman by whom this charming man did not seem just on the
point of being caught! It was like the sight of a splendid trout in
a transparent stream, sailing pensively to and fro your fly, in a
willand-a-won't sort of a way. Such a trout! it would be a thousand
pities to leave him, when evidently so well disposed! That trout,
fair maid or gentle widow, would have kept you whipping the stream and
dragging the fly--from morning to dewy eve. Certainly I don't wish
worse to my bitterest foe of five and twenty than such a rival as Sedley
Beaudesert at seven and forty.

Fanny, indeed, perplexed me horribly. Sometimes I fancied she liked me;
but the fancy scarce thrilled me with delight before it vanished in the
frost of a careless look or the co