ad Tom Moore and Byron,
_Don Juan_ perhaps excepted, by heart. A damsel who has geography and
the globes, astronomy and Cuvier, Raphael's cartoons and Rossini's
operas, at her finger-ends; but who, as true as I am alive, does not
know whether a mutton chop is cut off a pig or a cow--who would boil
tea and cauliflowers in the same manner, and has some vague idea that
eggs are the principal ingredient in a gooseberry pie."

"I want her for my wife, not for my cook," retorted I, rather
nettled.

"Who does not know," continued Richards, "whether dirty linen ought
to be boiled or baked."

"But she sings like St Cecilia, plays divinely, and dances like a
fairy."

"Yes, all that will do you a deal of good. I know the family; both
father and mother are the most contemptible people breathing."

"Stop there!" cried I; "they are not one iota better or worse than
their neighbours."

"You are right."

"Well, then, leave them in peace. I have promised to drink tea there
at six o'clock. If you will come, I will take you with me."

"Know then already, man. I will go, on one condition; that you leave
New York with me in three days."

"If my marriage is not settled," replied I.

"D----d fool!" muttered Richards between his teeth.

Six o'clock struck as we entered the drawing-room of my future
mother-in-law. The good lady almost frightened me as I went in, by
her very extraordinary appearance in a tremendous grey gauze turban,
fire-new, just arrived by the Henri Quatre packet-ship from Havre,
and that gave her exactly the look of one of our Mississippi
night-owls. Richards seemed a little startled; and Moreland, who was
already there, could not take his eyes off this remarkable
head-dress. Miss Margaret was costumed in pale green silk, her hair
flattened upon each side of her forehead _a la Marguerite_, (see the
_Journal des Modes,_) and looking like Jephtha's daughter, pale and
resigned, but rather more lackadaisical, with a sort of
"though-absent-not-forgot" look about her, inexpressibly sentimental
and interesting. The contrast was certainly rather strong between old
Moreland, who sat there, red-faced, thickset, and clumsy, and the
airy slender Staunton, who, for fear of spoiling his figure, lived
upon oysters and macaroon, and drank water with a rose leaf in it.

I had brought the languishing beauty above described, Scott's _Tales
of my Grandfather_, which had just appeared.

"Ah! Walter Scott!" exclaimed she, in her