"How d'ye do, my dearest Fanny," said Mr. Ralph Ashley, hastening forward, and holding out his arms; "let us embrace!" "Humph!" said Fanny; "indeed you shan't!" "Shan't what--kiss you?" "Yes, sir: you shall do nothing of the sort!" "Wrong!--here goes!" And before Miss Fanny could make her retreat, Ralph Ashley, Esq., caught that young lady in his arms, and impressed a salute upon her lips, so remarkably enthusiastic, that it resembled the discharge of a pistol. Perhaps we are wrong in saying that it was imprinted on his cousin's lips, inasmuch as Miss Fanny, though incapacitated from releasing herself, could still turn her head, and she always maintained that nothing but her cheek suffered. On this point we cannot be sure, and therefore leave the question undecided. Of one fact, however, there can be no doubt--namely, that Mr. Ralph Ashley received, almost immediately, a vigorous salute of another description upon the cheek, from Miss Fanny's open hand--a salute which caused his face to assume the most girlish bloom, and his eyes to suddenly fill with tears. "By Jove! you've got an arm!" said the cavalier, admiringly. "Come, my charming child--why did you treat me so cruelly?" "Why did you kiss me? Impudence!" "That's just what young ladies always say," replied her cavalier, philosophically; "whatever they like, they are sure to call impudent." "Like?" "Yes, like! Do you pretend to say that you are not complimented by a salute from such an elegant gentleman as myself?" "Oh, of course!" said Miss Fanny, satirically. "Then the element of natural affection--of consanguinity--has its due weight no doubt, my dearest. I am your cousin." "What of that, man?" "Everything! Don't you know that in this reputable province, called Virginia, blood goes a great way? Cousins are invariably favorites." "You are very much mistaken, sir," said Fanny. "There it is--you girls always deny it, and always believe it," said Mr. Ralph, philosophically. "Now, you would die for me." "Die, indeed!" "Would'nt you?" "Fiddlesticks!" "That's an impressive observation, and there's no doubt about your meaning, though the original signification, the philological origin of the phrase, is somewhat cloudy. You won't expire for me, then?" "No!" "Then live for me, delight of my existence!" said Mr. Ralph Ashley, with a languishing glance, and clasping his hands romantically as he spoke; "live for one, whose heart is wrapped in thee!" Miss Fanny's sense of the ludicrous was strong, and this pathetic appeal caused her to burst into laughter. "More ridiculous than ever, as I live!" she cried, "though I thought that was impossible." "Did you?" "Yes." Mr. Ashley gently twined a lock around his finger, and assuming a foppish air, replied: "I don't know whether you thought it impossible for me to become more ridiculous; but you can't help confessing, my own Fanny, that you doubted whether I could grow more fascinating." Fanny's lip curled.