the candidate. 'Then you will
not do for a clerk,' says the competitive examiner. Does Moneygrub of
Muckborough know? He does not; nor anything else. The clerk may be able
to answer some of the questions put to him. Moneygrub could not answer
one of them. But he is very fit for a legislator.

_Mr. MacBorrowdale._ Eh! but he is subjected to a pretty severe
competitive examination of his own, by what they call a constituency,
who just put him to the test in the art of conjuring, to see if he can
shift money from his own pocket into theirs, without any inconvenient
third party being aware of the transfer.

CHAPTER XVI

MISS NIPHET--THE THEATRE--THE LAKE--DIVIDED ATTRACTION--INFALLIBLE
SAFETY

Amiam: che non ha tregua
Con gli anni umana vita, e si dilegua.
Amiam: che il sol si muore, e poi rinasce;
A noi sua breve luce
S'asconde, e il sonno eterna notte adduce.
Tasso: Aminta.

Love, while youth knows its prime,
For mortal life can make no truce with time.
Love: for the sun goes down to rise as bright;
To us his transient light
Is veiled, and sleep comes on with everlasting night.

Lord Curryfin was too much a man of the world to devote his attentions
in society exclusively to one, and make them the subject of special
remark. He left the inner drawing-room, and came up to the doctor to ask
him if he knew the young lady who had sung the last ballad. The doctor
knew her well. She was Miss Niphet, the only daughter of a gentleman of
fortune, residing a few miles distant.

_Lord Curryfin._ As I looked at her while she was singing, I thought of
Southey's description of Laila's face in _Thadaba_:

A broad light floated o'er its marble paleness,
As the wind waved the fountain fire.

Marble paleness suits her well. There is something statuesque in her
whole appearance. I could not help thinking what an admirable Camilla
she would make in Cimarosa's _Orazii._ Her features are singularly
regular. They had not much play, but the expression of her voice was
such as if she felt the full force of every sentiment she uttered.

_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ I consider her to be a person of very deep
feeling, which she does not choose should appear on the surface. She
is animated in conversation when she is led into it. Otherwise, she is
silent and retiring, but obliging in the extreme; always ready t