matter composing his brain, it would take Leviathan, with, not one, but several hooks, to _un_fix it. And thus it often happens that the sight of a charmingly dressed, graceful, generally “smart” American girl attracts the stolid Britisher in the first place because he says to himself--“Money!” He knows all the incomes of all the best families in his own country,--and none of them are big enough to suit him. But the American girl arrives as more or less of a financial mystery. She may have thousands,--she may have millions,--he can never be quite sure. And he does all he can to ingratiate himself with her and give her a good time “on spec.” to begin with, while he makes cautious and diplomatic enquiries. If his hopes rest on a firm basis, his attentions are redoubled--if, on the contrary, they are built on shifting sand, he gradually diminishes his ardour and like a “wilting flower” fades and “fizzles” away. I am here reminded of a certain Earl, renowned in the political and social world, who, when he was a young man, went over on a visit to America and there fell, or feigned to fall, deeply in love with a very sweet, very beautiful, very gentle and lovable American girl. In a brief while he became engaged to her. The engagement was made public--the wedding day was almost fixed. The girl’s father was extremely wealthy, and she was the only child and sole heiress. But an unfortunate failure,--a gigantic collapse in the money market, made havoc of the father’s fortunes, and as soon as his ruin was declared beyond a doubt, the noble Earl, without much hesitation or ado, broke off his engagement, and rapidly decamped from the States back to his own country, where, as all the world knows, he did very well for himself. Strange to say, however, the girl whom he had thus brutally forsaken for no fault of her own, had loved him with all the romantic and trusting tenderness of first love, and the heartless blow inflicted upon her by his noble and honourable lordship was one from which she never recovered. The Noble and Honourable has, I repeat, done very well for himself, though it is rumoured that he sleeps badly, and that he has occasionally been heard muttering after the fashion of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark,--“Oh God, I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space were it not that I have bad dreams!”