bitterness of the apothecary’s potions by lumps of sugar, only make the dose more mawkish and loathsome. This mother and daughter (for so they were) were hardly seated, when Hamilton and his mistress rose to dance a minuet. The beauties of Eliza’s face and person, with the graces of her performance, were of themselves sufficient to rouse the censorious animadversions of Mrs. Sourkrout; but another cause called forth associations of more poignant malignity. She fancied she recognized the exact image of one who had gained the affections of the man whom she had destined for herself. Enquiring the name of the miss that (as she phrased it) was figuring away, she was confirmed in her conjecture, on hearing it was Wentbridge. This Mrs. Sourkrout was that niece of a right reverend bishop, whom we have before mentioned, as intended by his lordship, as the condition to be annexed to the gift which he would have bestowed upon Mr. Wentbridge, for the cure of souls. By the unexpected death of her uncle, failing in her hopes of a spiritual incumbent, she had accepted of a carnal, and became the lady of a topping butcher, extremely proud of the honour of having to wife the _nevoy_ of my lord the bishop. Mr. Sourkrout throve a-pace, rose to be alderman of the corporation, and at last to be mayor. Madam was not insensible to this elevation, and deported herself with what she conceived suitable dignity, by taking the lead in all companies of the borough, that was the scene of her grandeur. Even afterwards, when, upon the decease of her spouse, she began to think herself slighted in the scene of her late glory, and retired to a distant part of the country, she, among her new acquaintances, as the dowager of a mayor, expected an homage and deference, which she was not always so fortunate as to meet; and, happening to fix upon a neighbourhood not deficient in real gentry, she found herself less valued there, than when presiding over the municipal gossips of her corporation entertainment. This inattention to her dignity added to the sourness of her temper, not naturally very sweet. There was another source of bitterness; the lapse of many years had not obliterated the disappointment of her youth, and if love for the husband might have, perhaps, evaporated from a heart not the best adapted for retaining tender affections, there was one passion which remained in its earliest force, hatred for the wife. She had hated her when alive, and still hated her when dead. Brooding over her detestation, her fancy saw its object in all that torture and tormenting beauty and loveliness, which had captivated the object of her own passion. She had heard, with rage, of the charms of Eliza, and her striking resemblance of her mother. As the devil, in sending envy to the human heart, sends its severest punishment in the admiration of its object, and its own rankling gall, she could not, for her soul, avoid thinking Eliza the most engaging woman in the room. Nay, her