Why is it that the bustling matron, who (having, without preference or selection, married the first man who proposed to her,) has spent her days in the unsentimental details of a household, a nursery, and a school-room, merely considering her partner as the medium through which the several departments are provided for?—why is it that the languid beauty, who has sold herself to age or folly for an opera-box, an equipage, a title?—why is it that the scold, who has jangled through a wedded life of broils and disputes—and the buxom widow, whose gay and blooming face gives the lie to her mourning garments?—why is it that they all cast a pitying glance of contempt on the “single woman of a certain age” who ventures an opinion on the subject of love? Why do they all look as if it were impossible she could ever have felt its influence? On the contrary, the very fact of singleness affords in itself presumptive evidence of the power of some strong and unfortunate predilection. Few women pass through life without having had some opportunities of what is commonly called “settling;” therefore the chances are, that betrayed affections, an unrequited attachment, or an early prepossession, has called forth the sentiment of which they are supposed incapable—and called it forth, too, in a mind of too much delicacy to admit the idea of marriage from any other motive than that of love. The following story, which is ushered into the world by so unattractive a title, might afford an example, that a life which appears “a blank” in the history of events, may be far from “a blank” in the history of feelings. By the death of her father, Lord T——, Isabella St. Clair found herself, at the age of nineteen, an orphan possessed of a considerable fortune, of great personal attractions, and of all the accomplishments which, in these days of education and refinement, are expected to grace young ladies of fashion. Her brother, the young Lord T——, was not of an age to serve as her protector, and accordingly she removed to the house of her uncle and guardian, Sir Edward Elmsley. Sir Edward and Lady Elmsley were of that respectable class of English gentry who, by not attempting to move in a more elevated circle than that in which they are naturally placed, command the esteem and respect of those above, as well as of those below them. Their daughter Fanny, although of the same age as her cousin Isabella, had not yet been initiated into the pleasures and the pains of a London campaign. Isabella, who had been accustomed to a life of excitement, was not sorry, at the expiration of her mourning for her father, to join in whatever gaiety was going forward, and to exercise once more the power of that beauty which, even in London, had attracted its full share of admiration.