a snug placeman, with a little box at Richmond
or Kew, and a half-score of little picaninnies, that will come and bob
curtseys at the garden-gate when their uncle the General rides up on his
great charger, with his aide-de-camp's pockets filled with gingerbread
for the nephews and nieces. 'Tis for you to brandish the sword of Mars.
As for me, I look forward to a quiet life: a quiet little home, a quiet
little library full of books, and a little Some one dulce ridentem,
dulce loquentem, on t'other side of the fire, as I scribble away at my
papers. I am so pleased with this prospect, so utterly contented and
happy, that I feel afraid as I think of it, lest it should escape me;
and, even to my dearest Hal, am shy of speaking of my happiness. What is
ambition to me, with this certainty? What do I care for wars, with this
beatific peace smiling near?

"Our mother's friend, Mynheer Van den Bosch, has been away on a tour to
discover his family in Holland, and, strange to say, has found one. Miss
(who was intended by maternal solicitude to be a wife for your worship)
has had six months at Kensington School, and is coming out with a
hundred pretty accomplishments, which are to complete her a perfect
fine lady. Her papa brought her to make a curtsey in Dean Street, and
a mighty elegant curtsey she made. Though she is scarce seventeen,
no dowager of sixty can be more at her ease. She conversed with Aunt
Lambert on an equal footing; she treated the girls as chits--to Hetty's
wrath and Theo's amusement. She talked politics with the General, and
the last routs, dresses, operas, fashions, scandal, with such perfect
ease that, but for a blunder or two, you might have fancied Miss Lydia
was born in Mayfair. At the Court end of the town she will live, she
says; and has no patience with her father, who has a lodging in Monument
Yard. For those who love a brown beauty, a prettier little mignonne
creature cannot be seen. But my taste, you know, dearest brother,
and..."

Here follows a page of raptures and quotations of verse, which, out of
a regard for the reader, and the writer's memory, the editor of the
present pages declines to reprint. Gentlemen and ladies of a certain age
may remember the time when they indulged in these rapturous follies
on their own accounts; when the praises of the charmer were for ever
warbling from their lips or trickling from their pens; when the flowers
of life were in full bloom, and all the birds of spring