Miss Lushington, I need hardly observe, is no longer young. Barmaids of tender years, albeit extremely attractive to the usual frequenters of the snug locality over which they preside, cannot be expected to possess the _aplomb_ with which mature experience and the rejection of many offers invest the lady of more autumnal charms. They are apt to be a little flurried by the attentions of the military, and somewhat over-excited by their anxiety for the commercial interest; also prone, if good-looking, to fly away and _better_ themselves matrimonially and otherwise. But Miss L. is far above all such weaknesses as these. Not a red-coat in the whole British army could raise a corresponding hue in her cheek by the most ardent avowal of devotion; nay, even a cornet of Hussars (and I take an officer of that rank and service to be more at his ease in female society than other children of men) has been known to retire abashed and worsted from a little match at quiet _persiflage_ with Miss Lushington. As for the commercial gents! why, though they worship the very keys she jingles, and the lemons in the nets above her head, they would no more think of proposing to her than to the mother of the Gracchi. I have often wondered what Miss Lushington’s early history can have been. Was she ever a little girl with long tails and frills above her ankles, swinging a slate to a day-school? Had she a mother, who washed her face, and scolded her, and taught her to sew, and eventually launched her on the boards of a minor theatre; for surely those majestic manners must have been acquired before the foot-lights? Was there ever a time that she came home wearied and saddened, pressing some girlish treasure to her heart, with a thrill, half joy, half pain, and looking along an endless vista in the future, containing a house, a garden, a pig, some rosy children, a couple of bee-hives, and a fresh-coloured young man at his tea. Was she ever young? or did she descend from her attic some fine summer’s day, this perfect and finished creature of for—well! of _between_ thirty and forty, just as Minerva sprang ready-armed from the brain of Jove, or Venus wet and glowing, with nothing on but her shells, emerged from the blushing sea? I incline to the latter supposition. I believe that Caroline Lushington (of course, with that colour on her cheek, her name is sure to be Caroline; besides, I saw it on her workbox)—I say I believe that Caroline Lushington never was the least different from what she is now, and that I should always have been as much afraid of her as I am at this present moment. I am a shy man—not too shy to confess it. I blush to the lobes of my ears, in replying to her kind inquiries; but Miss L. does not laugh at me; for, woman-like, she has a prejudice in favour of shy men, and she pities my infirmities, and my arm in a black leather sling.