in the gaiety of our careless hearts, without fear or apprehension! But
now we are afraid, in the presence of ladies, to give utterance to any
thing beyond a remark upon the weather. It is long since we have drilled
ourselves to attribute smiles and whispers, and even squeezes of the
hand, to their true source. We see an album lurking in every dimple of a
young maiden's cheek, and a large folio common-place book, reposing its
alexandrine length, in every curve of a dowager's double chin.

_Shepherd_. Tuts, man! What ails ye at Allbums?

_North_. No age is free from the infection. We go to a house in the
country where there are three unmarried daughters, two aunts, and a
grandmother. Complain not of a lack of employment on a rainy morning,
in such a domicile and establishment as this. You may depend upon it,
that the first patter of rain upon the window is the signal for all the
vellum and morocco bound scrap-books to make a simultaneous rush upon
the table. Forth comes the grandmother, and pushes an old dingy-coloured
volume into your hands, and pointing out a spare leaf, between a recipe
for curing corns, and a mixture for the hooping-cough, she begs you to
fill it up--with any thing you please.

_Shepherd_. Weel, weel, man--why canna you oblege the auld body?

_North_. What right has an old woman, with silver spectacles on her
long, thin nose, to enlist any man among the awkward squad which compose
her muster roll? Who can derive inspiration from the boney hand, which
is coaxingly laid on your shoulder, and trembles, not from agitation or
love, but merely from the last attack of the rheumatism?

_Shepherd_. But young leddies hae their Allbums, too, as weel's auld