"Do you really know so little of the sex as to flatter yourself that a lively girl like Edith, with more imagination than wit, would prefer you, who--pardon me, dear cousin--are rather a commonplace sort of personage, to a gay young officer of dragoons? Why, don't you see that he talks more to her in one hour than you do in four-and-twenty? Are not his manners more fascinating--his attentions more pointed--his looks"-- "Upon my word, Miss Mary!" I exclaimed, "this _is_ going rather too far. Do you mean to say that in point of personal appearance"-- "I do, indeed, George. You know I promised you to be candid." "Say no more. I see that you women are all alike. These confounded scarlet coats"-- "Are remarkably becoming; and really I am not sure that in one of them--if it were particularly well made--you might not look almost as well as Roper." "I have half a mind to turn postman." "Not a bad idea for a man of letters. But why don't you hunt?" "I dislike riding." "You stupid creature! Edith never will marry you: so you may just as well abandon the idea at once." So ended my conference with my cousin. I had made it a rule, however, never to believe above one half of what Miss Mary Muggerland said; and, upon the whole, I am inclined to think that was a most liberal allowance of credulity. A young lady is not always the safest depositary of such secrets, or the wisest and most sound adviser. A little spice of spite is usually intermingled with her counsels; and I doubt whether in one case out of ten they sincerely wish success to their simple and confiding clients. On one point, however, I was inclined to think her right. Edith certainly had a decided military bias. I begin to hold the doctrine that there is more in judicial astrology than most people are inclined to admit. To what other mysterious fount than the stars can we trace that extraordinary principle which regulates men in the choice of their different professions? Take half-a-dozen lads of the same standing and calibre; give them the same education; inculcate them with the same doctrines; teach them the identical catechism; and yet you will find that in this matter of profession there is not the slightest cohesion among them. Had I been born under the influence of Mars, I too might have been a dragoon--as it was, Saturn, my planetary godfather, had devoted me to the law, and here I stood a discomfited concocter of processes, and a botcher of deeds and titles. Pondering these things deeply, I made my way to the Parliament-House, then in the full hum attendant upon the close of the Session. The usual groups of the briefless were gathered around the stoves. As I happened to have a paper in my hand, I was instantly assailed by half-a-dozen unemployed advocates. "Hallo, M'Whirter, my fine fellow--d'ye want a counsel? Set you down cheap at a condescendence," cried Mr Anthony Whaup, a tall barrister of considerable facetiousness.