e force of her charms. You
should, in compassion, cease to be such an engrosser, my dear Isabel, or
at least set up shop, and sell off all the goods you do not mean to keep
for your own use."

"You shall have them all," replied Miss Vere, "and the conjuror to boot,
at a very easy rate."

"No! Nancy shall have the conjuror," said Miss Ilderton, "to supply
deficiencies; she's not quite a witch herself, you know."

"Lord, sister," answered the younger Miss Ilderton, "what could I do
with so frightful a monster? I kept my eyes shut, after once glancing at
him; and, I protest, I thought I saw him still, though I winked as close
as ever I could."

"That's a pity," said her sister; "ever while you live, Nancy, choose an
admirer whose faults can be hid by winking at them.--Well, then, I must
take him myself, I suppose, and put him into mamma's Japan cabinet,
in order to show that Scotland can produce a specimen of mortal clay
moulded into a form ten thousand times uglier than the imaginations of
Canton and Pekin, fertile as they are in monsters, have immortalized in
porcelain."

"There is something," said Miss Vere, "so melancholy in the situation of
this poor man, that I cannot enter into your mirth, Lucy, so readily as
usual. If he has no resources, how is he to exist in this waste country,
living, as he does, at such a distance from mankind? and if he has the
means of securing occasional assistance, will not the very suspicion
that he is possessed of them, expose him to plunder and assassination by
some of our unsettled neighbours?"

"But you forget that they say he is a warlock," said Nancy Ilderton.

"And, if his magic diabolical should fail him," rejoined her sister, "I
would have him trust to his magic natural, and thrust his enormous head,
and most preternatural visage, out at his door or window, full in view
of the assailants. The boldest robber that ever rode would hardly bide a
second glance of him. Well, I wish I had the use of that Gorgon head of
his for only one half hour."

"For what purpose, Lucy?" said Miss Vere.

"O! I would frighten out of the castle that dark, stiff, and stately Sir
Frederick Langley, that is so great a favourite with your father, and so
little a favourite of yours. I protest I shall be obliged to the Wizard
as long as I live, if it were only for the half hour's relief from that
man's company which we have gained by deviating from the party to visit
Elshie."

"What would you say