admiration than fish; two very showy handsome girls
they were and I could not help thinking in my secret soul that there
were not much odds to be risked on the late favourite Alice, against
such a spanker as Monimia Smith. As for Sibylla, she despised gold and
acres in comparison with genius and mustaches; and therefore, I
concluded, she intended to be the second horse to her sister, and keep
out the rest of the field. A clever, dashing, creature Monimia
certainly, with such a pretence at childishness that nobody felt any
wonder at any thing she did. And that same childishness is a very
captivating quality till a girl is rising twenty or thereabouts; but
after that time it does not take. At the same time, it is only a show
qualification after all, and may do for a ball-room, but has no chance
any where else. We looked at them without making any remark, and all
three pretended to be so busy watching, their floats, that they had no
idea--not they, poor souls!--that Frank Edwards of Bandvale Hall was
within a mile of them. Sibylla occasionally glanced towards the house,
in hopes, I suppose, of seeing Mr Percy Marvale emerge from his literary
labours; but Monimia, looking under her long beautiful eyelashes, saw
very well where we were, and threw herself into twenty attitudes of
expectation, hope, and disappointment, ad ran through the whole gamut of
a fisher's passions, in a way that would have done for a recitation of
Collins's ode; and graceful, playful, and beautiful the attitudes were--
and I saw in a moment that Frank's attention was caught. He was silent
all of a sudden, and said no more about Alice Elstree. Monimia had it
all her own way; but when she saw that her bait had taken, she
determined to play the trout a little longer. She cast herself into
finer and more captivating attitudes than ever, threw back her bonnet
till it hung at her back--her beautiful hair broke loose--and in her
hurry to pull up her hook, though I am ready to declare the float had
never moved, she pressed so vehemently on poor Old Smith, who was deep
in a contention with the root of a tree, which had held his hook
prisoner for half an hour, that he lost his footing and fell plump into
the water. If Monimia's motions were astonishing, her screams were
appalling; and though I feel sure she had no intention of drowning her
father, she had put him into tremendous hazard. The water was deep--he
could not swim a stroke--the banks were steep; and the