In the lobby she said, with an odd, goodnatured look--

'Don't allow any of his love-making, my dear. Charles Oakley has not a
guinea, and an heiress would be very convenient. Of course he has his eyes
about him. Charles is not by any means foolish; and I should not be at all
sorry to see him well married, for I don't think he will do much good
any other way; but there are degrees, and his ideas are sometimes very
impertinent.'

I was an admiring reader of the _Albums_, the _Souvenirs_, the _Keepsakes_,
and all that flood of Christmas-present lore which yearly irrigated
England, with pretty covers and engravings; and floods of elegant
twaddle--the milk, not destitute of water, on which the babes of literature
were then fed. On this, my genius throve. I had a little album, enriched
with many gems of original thought and observation, which I jotted down in
suitable language. Lately, turning over these faded leaves of rhyme
and prose, I lighted, under this day's date, upon the following sage
reflection, with my name appended:--

'Is there not in the female heart an ineradicable jealousy, which, if it
sways the passions of the young, rules also the _advice_ of the _aged_? Do
they not grudge to youth the sentiments (though Heaven knows how _shadowed_
with sorrow) which they can _no longer inspire_, perhaps even _experience_;
and does not youth, in turn, sigh over the envy which has _power to
blight_?

MAUD AYLMER RUTHYN.'

'He has not been making love to me,' I said rather tartly, 'and he does not
seem to me at all impertinent, and I really don't care the least whether he