Many very well-meaning people, who pass for men of sense in every other respect, are apt, when they feel matrimonially inclined, to think it indispensably necessary to court the old folks, "hammer and tongs," as the vulgar saying is, in the first place, and, having obtained their good graces, to proceed very leisurely in their approaches to the young lady. This may be a very prudent mode of managing matters, for aught I know, but to me it savors rather of cold-blooded calculation, than ardent or even passably warm affection. It is, besides, a gross and unpardonable insult to the said young lady, whom it places immediately upon a level with a horse, a pig, a cow, a load of hay, a chest of drawers, or any other article of trade. It is like a man-of-war going in to engage an enemy's battery, and heaving to, to "blaze away" at two old dismantled hulks that are lying high and dry at the harbor's mouth. CHAPTER IV. _Parolles._ My lord, I am a man whom fortune hath cruelly scratched. _Lafeu._ Well, what would you have me to do? 'tis too late to pare her nails now. ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL. There never was yet fair woman but she made mouths in a glass. KING LEAR. Julia Effingham was the only child of a rich merchant, who, like many others in these latter days, when scheming and speculation have superseded the good, old-fashioned habits of steady industry and unmoveable perseverance in the art of acquiring wealth, was dazzled by the one thousand and one bubbles that the South American revolution set afloat. He dipped pretty largely into Mexican mines, and was bit; he undertook to improve the breed of horses in Peru, and was bit; he attempted to establish steam cotton-factories in Colombia, and was bit; he bought largely into a Chilian Steam-boat Company, and was bit; till, finally, he resolved to visit South America himself, "to see," as he expressed it, "where the devil his fifty thousand pounds had gone to." He could obtain no tidings of a single farthing on the Atlantic side of that continent; but he learned one thing most thoroughly and satisfactorily, as thousands have done besides him, that if he had gone there in the first place, and seen the nakedness of the land, and the deplorable and remediless ignorance and superstition of the people, his fifty thousand pounds would have snugly remained in the three per cents. and India bonds. He was determined, however, now that he was fairly afloat, to "go the whole figure," and see the worst, if there was any thing worse to come. Accordingly he took passage for Valparaiso, where he found how, why, and wherefore his steam-boat concern had become a decided take-in; it is not very profitable running a boat of that kind in a country where wood sells at three cents per pound on the beach, and where the people have no idea of travelling except in the saddle.