would afford him the requisite opportunity for effecting his wishes? Yet even so it really was: intoxicated with vanity, which led him to believe himself peculiarly agreeable to women, he at length had the inconceivable folly and presumption, on the morning after an evening in which he fancied that he had displayed peculiar brilliance, to intimate to her that his affections were no longer under his own control, having been taken captive by her irresistible charms. Vain thought! as well might a cock-sparrow have sought to mate himself with the stately swan! It was for some time rather difficult for the Lady Cecilia to understand that he was seriously making her a proposal. At length, however, she comprehended him: evincing the utmost degree of astonishment which her drooping eyelids and languid hauteur of manner would permit her to manifest. When poor Tuft found that such was the case, his face burned like fire, and he felt in a fierce fluster within. "You haven't mistaken me for Miss Macspleuchan, Mr. Tuft, have you?" said Lady Cecilia, with a faint smile. "You and Mr. Titmouse and the marquis, I hear, sat much longer after dinner last night than usual!" Tuft was utterly confounded. Was her Ladyship insinuating that he was under the influence of wine? He was for a while speechless. "I assure you, Lady Cecilia"----at length stammered he. "Oh--now I understand!--You are rehearsing for Lady Tawdry's private theatricals? Do you play there next month? Well, I dare say you'll make a delicious Romeo." Here the earl happening to enter, Lady Cecilia, with a languid smile, apprised him that Mr. Tuft had been rehearsing, to admiration, a love-scene which he was studying for Lady Tawdry's theatricals; on which the earl, in a good-natured way, said that he should like to witness it, if not too much trouble to Mr. Tuft. If that gentleman could have crept up the chimney without being observed, he would have employed the first moment of sooty repose and security, in praying that the Lady Cecilia might bring herself to believe, that he had really been doing what at present he feared she only affected to believe, viz. that he had been only playing at love-making. He resolved to outstay the earl, who, indeed, withdrew in a few minutes' time, having entered only for the purpose of asking Lady Cecilia a question; and on her Ladyship and her would-be lover being again alone-- "If I have been guilty of presumption, Lady Cecilia"----commenced Tuft, with tremulous earnestness, looking a truly piteous object. "Not the least, Mr. Tuft," said she, calmly smiling; "or, even if you _have_, I'll forgive it on one condition"---- "Your Ladyship has only to intimate"---- "That you will go through it all with Miss Macspleuchan; or, couldn't we get up a sweet scene with my maid? Annette is a pretty little thing, and her broken English"----