remain mistress of the field, for she will grow so fidgetty, (not cross, for she is, in fact, good-tempered,) that she will lose her self-possession, and then all will be over with her." "I have not the slightest wish to enter the lists with her. But now, tell me something of the men who are here." "That will be quickly done;--Sir Charles is a fool; Mr. Ernsley is a prig; and Mr. Farnley has a broad kind of humour, and a talent for mimicry, but he is coarse and unrefined, which, by the way, is, perhaps, the reason that his daughter thinks it necessary to be so painfully the reverse. Mr. Brandon, your aunt's brother-in-law, is an agreeable man. Mr. Manby is a lout." "And Sir Edmund Ardern?" I inquired. "Oh, as to Sir Edmund Ardern, I entreat you, on the same principle on which pastry-cooks cram their apprentices during the first few days, to talk to him incessantly. Let him sit by you to-morrow at breakfast, at luncheon, at dinner, walk with him, and ride with him; I shall not come near you, in order that he may have full scope for his fascinating powers; you shall be fascinated till you cry for mercy." I laughed, but secretly thought that something of the severity of his satire proceeded from the fact, that Sir Edmund was the only handsome and pleasing person in the house, and I did not feel inclined to take entirely for granted, that Henry's judgment of him was correct. Our _tete-a-tete_ was soon interrupted by the entrance of Mrs. Ernsley, and the arrival of tea. Mrs. Ernsley threw herself into a large arm-chair, flung her bonnet and shawl on the opposite couch, and then began arranging her hair. "You look tired, Mrs. Ernsley," said Henry. "To death," she answered. "Dear Mrs. Brandon has been wondering whether the stars are inhabited or not. It is not fair to make one stretch out one's mind so far." "What did Sir Edmund pronounce on the subject?" inquired Henry. "That there was much to be said on both sides of the question. I left them at that point." "Do you like Sir Edmund?" "I wish you would not ask me." "Why?" "Because he hates me, and I won't own to a _passion malheureuse_. He nearly overturned poor Mr. Farnley to-day at dinner, in trying to avoid the chair next me." "Oh, no; it was in trying to get the one next Miss Middleton," observed Rosa Moore, with an Innocent expression of countenance. Mrs. Ernsley continued without noticing the interruption, otherwise than by a downward movement of the corners of her mouth--"I had a thousand times rather be hated by him, than be liked in the way in which he seems to like any one, _qui lui tombe sous la main_." "No doubt," said Henry; "next to being loved there is nothing like being hated." "You think so too, then?" said Mrs. Ernsley.