Man is the lord of the creation, and he has right because he has power. If any body can find a better reason let them, we will not quarrel with them or dispute the point; our business is not philosophy. To our narrative then. Horatio Markham no sooner arrived in town than he went to pay his respects to his noble patron. He was graciously received. He made a few common-place apologies, which were received with due common-place politeness, and that business was soon over. From the house of his noble patron he made the best of his way to the residence of his queer old friend, John Martindale. Almost all single men, who are not downright hermits, have some peculiar pet place of call; some friend’s house, where they uniformly make their first and last visit; where they pop in without fear of intruding. Sometimes, such is the fickleness of humanity, these places are changed; and even Markham, with all his steadiness, was once in great danger of substituting the house of Mr. Henderson for that of Mr. Martindale. A thousand blessings on the head of Dr. Crack for supplanting him there! Mr. Martindale was not at home when Markham called. That, of course, Markham knew; but he would not suffer any more reproaches from the old gentleman for neglect of attention. Signora Rivolta and her daughter were sitting together; the mother was reading, the daughter was drawing. The mother laid aside her book when Markham entered the room; and she smilingly said, that her time might be better employed than in reading for amusement. The book was a volume of Italian plays. An Englishwoman would have thought herself most learnedly occupied with the same; especially if she had had by her side a dictionary, which she was frequently under the necessity of consulting. There is no waste of time in reading books of amusement when they are not amusing. What a fuss people make about amusement, and very sensible people too! But perhaps there is a pleasure in railing against pleasure, and so we will let it pass. It was not usual with Signora Rivolta to express herself with so much freedom and cheerfulness to Markham as she did at this interview. There had generally been something of distance and restraint in her, as if fearful of giving the young man too much encouragement. The time had been that Markham would have been mightily pleased with this manifest change in the deportment of Signora Rivolta; but under present circumstances it appeared to him that it was merely owing to the apparent discontinuance on his part of all serious attention to Clara; and he also felt that it would be morally impossible for him, in the present state of his father’s affairs, to think of making proposals.