t, or fish?--can you give him any out-o'-door occupation?"

"I'm quite abroad as to all his tastes and habits. I only know so much
of him as pertains to his character in the 'line,' but I 'll go and
write my note. I 'll come back and show you what I have said," added he,
as he gained the door.

When Marion was left alone to reflect over her brother's words, she was
not altogether pleased. She was no convert to his opinions as to the
necessity of any peculiar stratagem in the campaign of life. She
had seen the house in town crowded with very great and distinguished
company; she had observed how wealth asserted itself in society, and she
could not perceive that in their acceptance by the world there was any
the slightest deficiency of deference and respect. If they had failed
in their county experiment in England, it was, she thought, because her
father rashly took up an extreme position in politics, a mistake which
Augustus indeed saw and protested against, but which some rash advisers
were able to over-persuade the Colonel into adopting.

Lady Augusta, too, was an evidence that the better classes did
not decline this alliance, and on the whole she felt that Temple's
reasonings were the offshoots of his peculiar set; that small priesthood
of society who hold themselves so essentially above the great body of
mankind.

"Not that we must make anymore mistakes, however," thought she. "Not
that we can afford another defeat;" and as she arrived at this sage
judgment, Temple entered, with some sheets of note-paper in his hand.

"I 'm not quite satisfied with any of these, Marion; I suspect I must
just content myself with a mere formal 'requests the company.'"

"Let me hear what you have said."

"Here 's the first," said he, reading. "'My dear Lord,--The lucky
accident of your Lordship's presence in this neighborhood--which I have
only accidentally learned.'"

"Oh, dear, no! that's a chapter of 4 accidents.'"

"Well; listen to this one: 'If I can trust to a rumor that has just
reached us here, but which, it is possible our hopes may have given
a credence to, that stern fact will subsequently deny, or reject, or
contradict.' I 'm not fully sure which verb to take."

"Much worse than the other," said Marion.

"It's all the confounded language; I could turn it in French to
perfection."

"But I fancied your whole life was passed in this sort of
phrase-fashioning, Temple," said she, half smiling.

"Nothing of the kind