a moustache, which he amiably swore he would take off when married, gained the prize from which the modest merit of Russell was repelled. In a perfect fluster of delight with the attentions he paid to her daughter, terrified lest he should change his mind, or any unforeseen event prevent the consummation so devoutly to be wished, the managing mother presented no obstruction to the courtship. “Such a genteel young man!” she would say to her husband. “He is greatly taken out in good company. Just the night before last, he was at the Honourable Mrs ——’s party in Oman’s Rooms. He danced with Miss Forster, the great heiress, who, they say, is distractedly in love with him. But he says she has naething like the elegant carriage o’ our ’Liza. Indeed, between you and me, says he, jokingly, to me the other day, she’s splay-footed. He could make his fortune at once, you see, however, and I’m sure it’s really extraordinary o’ him to particulareese the like o’ us in the way he’s doing”—and so forth. The old man sat twirling his thumbs and saying nothing, but having his own fears all the time that all was not really gold that glittered. He was, however, one of those people who, upon habit and principle, never say a single word about any speculative thing that is proposed to them, till the result has been decided, and then they can tell that they all along thought it would turn out so. It was untelling the prescience and wisdom that old Farney believed himself to be thus possessed of. Suffice it to say, the managing mother, within the month, made out a mittimus of destruction in favour of her daughter, Eliza Farney, spinster, consigning her to the custody of William Dempster, Esq., blackguard by commission, and downdraught by destiny.