mport myself with a becoming Discretion and
Dignity, then such equipment is not to be found within these Four Walls
or in daily Practice of Music and Mathematics. Which, though I be filled
with no over-weening Distrust of my own Capabilities, seemeth to my eyes
of some Doubt and Difference of Opinion."

"On a certain day of June," her biographer goes on to state, "Mistress
Mary Twining was placed in the Coach which should take her a Two Days'
Journey to her Father's House. She was in Company with an old and
Reverend Gentleman of friendly Disposition, who was well known to her
Father and held in excellent esteem of him. The Fairness of a Maid is
but a vain Toy, but," declares this most staid biographer, with a
refreshing candor, "as it is a matter which is not without its effect on
the Fortunes of many, it is not always to be passed over in the Silence
which would befit a Sober Pen. Mary Twining's Hair was of a golden
Colour and wound itself in small, and not always tidy, Rings about her
Neck and Forehead. Her eyes were of a darker appearance than is common,
and her Mouth, though not without a certain Winsomeness, gave Promise of
a Firmness of Opinion and an Independence which was perhaps but a Sign
of the Times, which her small and shrewdly-set Nose did not deny."

I more than suspect that, disclaim it as he may, our discreet biographer
was in nowise loath to dwell a little on this vain toy of Mary's
personal appearance. I even fancy that he was tempted to employ greater
latitude of expression, which only his stern sense of his
responsibilities led him to reject, in the description of that
uncompromising mouth, not to mention the spice of naughtiness involved
in that nose so "shrewdly set."

Not an unattractive picture in the coach window, this June day, is this
of Mary Twining, in her big poke bonnet, white kerchief and
short-waisted gown. And who is this, who, coming at the last moment,
springs into a vacant place at her side, under the very eyes of the
reverend old gentleman, her father's friend? The three-cornered hat
which he doffs with ceremonious courtesy to the fair vision before him,
the powdered queue, the high boots with jingling spurs, the sword at his
side, are not unpicturesque items in our nineteenth-century eyes. Were
they likely to be so in the eyes of this nineteen-year-old maiden just
out of boarding-school?

"As it happened," says the biographer, "there went down the same day,
and by the same Coa