appearance and extremely lovely; the other about forty, stout, not at all genteel, and with reddish hair.

I was doubting which was to be my future patroness, when the latter person ended my doubts by asking if I was the young person recommended to her by Miss Almeria More

ton.

On my answering in the affirmative, she remarked that I was a great deal younger than she expected, and questioned me very much as to whether I could do all that had been promised for me.

All that I could say for myself was, that I would do my best.

"No one can do more," remarked the elegant and younger lady on the sofa.

"I doubt," said the other, "whether she can undertake the French."

"Miss Moreton informed me that she could speak it very well; but she looks so youngI doubt it."

"I wish my dear lady," she added, addressing her handsome friend, "I wish you would

talk to her a bit in that language, you understand it so well."

"It is rather awkward for you, my dear young lady," said the stranger, in French, "to be called upon to converse in a foreign language with one who is quite unknown to you, but do your best, and do not feel afraid of me."

This was said in the sweetest voice imaginable, and I answered her respectfully in the same language, and gaining courage as I went on, replied to all the queries of the kind lady fluently and without hesitation.

It was evident that Lady McJames did not understand one word we were saying, and she became impatient at the continuance of the conversation.

My new friend therefore closed it by assuring her that I spoke French like a native.

I was then about to be questioned upon my other qualifications, when my kind ally suggested that as I had travelled all day I must necessarily be fatigued, and perhaps hungry, and that it would therefore be better to defer my examination till the morrow.

To this Lady McJames, who appeared to have much deference for her guest, consented; and tea being brought in, I hoped to be left for a time in quiet; but not so, the boy and girl who had burst into the parlour on my arrival, and who were the eldest branches of the family, now, together with four younger, noisy, redheaded children, surrounded and persecuted me so with impertinent questions that I was completely bewildered.

At length the carriage of Lady Eustace (such was the name of my gentle questioner) was announced, and I felt grieved when she rose to depart.

As soon as she was gone, Lady McJames became very dictatorial, and renewed the questions which were to have been deferred till the

morrow.

At last, heart-sick and tired, I was glad to hear the summons for the maid to show me to my room. It was at the very top of the house, and as I had never been in one of such a height before, I thought that I should never

reach it. When we did, I found the room allotted to me of the very smallest dimensions.

I begged to have my trunks brought up, when the woman, staring rudely at me, asked if I supposed she was hired to wait upon me.

"I must tell you," said she, “that I am the leddy's maid, and only showed you to your room now for fear the stupid girl of the house should make some mistake, and perhaps show you into mine."

I apologized, and she left me with an indignant flounce out of the room, and about half an inch of candle.

I feared this would be out before I could procure my things, but I did not dare go down and look for them, being apprehensive of a reprimand.

However, in a few minutes I heard a knock at my door, and opening it, I perceived a young woman of a hard-working appearance with my smallest trunk. She told me civilly that I should have the others as soon as she could get some one to help her up with them,

and seeing my candle nearly expended, left me her own.

Thanking her, and begging to be called in the morning an hour before the family assembled to breakfast, I hastened to bed, thoroughly knocked up, desolate, and unhappy.

I was awoke in the morning by the sun glaring full in my face. It was some time before I could possibly remember where I was.

Every thing around me was new and strange. Instead of the snow-white curtains, carpeted room, and elegant little furniture of my pretty chamber at the vicarage, my eyes fell on a tiny deal table, one chair, and a stool with a jug and basin on it, and in a corner stood my little trunk.

The small window was shaded by a scanty check curtain. I got out of bed and undrew it. What I saw there was a still greater contrast to what I had quitted.

Instead of the charming little lawn and parterres filled with flowers breathing the sweetest odours, and the jasmine and myrtle creeping almost into the windows, while the soft dash of