voted to his
own affairs. He goes very little into society--a political dinner, or a
scientific meeting are the only social relaxations that tempt him.

My sister leads a life which is not much in accordance with her simple
tastes. She is wearied of balls, operas, flower-shows, and all other
London gaieties besides; and heartily longs to be driving about the
green lanes again in her own little poney-chaise, and distributing
plum-cake prizes to the good children at the Rector's Infant School.
But the female friend who happens to be staying with her, is fond of
excitement; my father expects her to accept the invitations which he is
obliged to decline; so she gives up her own tastes and inclinations as
usual, and goes into hot rooms among crowds of fine people, hearing the
same glib compliments, and the same polite inquiries, night after night,
until, patient as she is, she heartily wishes that her fashionable
friends all lived in some opposite quarter of the globe, the farther
away the better.

My arrival from the continent is the most welcome of events to her. It
gives a new object and a new impulse to her London life.

I am engaged in writing a historical romance--indeed, it is principally
to examine the localities in the country where my story is laid, that I
have been abroad. Clara has read the first half-dozen finished chapters,
in manuscript, and augurs wonderful success for my fiction when it is
published. She is determined to arrange my study with her own hands; to
dust my books, and sort my papers herself. She knows that I am already
as fretful and precise about my literary goods and chattels, as
indignant at any interference of housemaids and dusters with my library
treasures, as if I were a veteran author of twenty years' standing; and
she is resolved to spare me every apprehension on this score, by taking
all the arrangements of my study on herself, and keeping the key of the
door when I am not in need of it.

We have our London amusements, too, as well as our London employments.
But the pleasantest of our relaxations are, after all, procured for
us by our horses. We ride every day--sometimes with friends, sometimes
alone together. On these latter occasions, we generally turn our horses'
heads away from the parks, and seek what country sights we can get
in the neighbourhood of London. The northern roads are generally our
favourite ride.

Sometimes we penetrate so far that we can bait our horses at a littl