"Good gracious! no, James.... Why should you go away just as your aunt Barnaby is come, and she having such kind intentions towards you all?" "Very well, sir," replied the gay-hearted youth; "if such be your pleasure, I will brave the danger, and trust to Providence.... But, good night, father!... I must say one word to my sisters before they go to bed".... And the privileged intruder entered his mother's dressing-room while the party were still discussing the merits of the new-comers. "Oh! here comes James," exclaimed Lucy, making room for him on the sofa where she was seated. "That's delightful! Come, mamma, sit down again ... let us hear what this accomplished squire of dames says of her.... Do you think now, James, that Kattie M'Gee is the prettiest girl you ever saw?" "Prettiest?--why, yes, prettiest, as contra-distinguished from most beautiful,--perhaps I do," replied the young man, with an ex-cathedra sort of air; ... "but if you mean to ask who I think the very loveliest creation ever permitted to consecrate the earth by setting her heaven-born feet upon it, I reply Miss Agnes Willoughby!" "Bravo!... That will do," replied Lucy. "I thought how it would fare with the puir Scottish lassie the moment I beheld this new divinity." "Poor James! I am really sorry for you this time," said his mother, "for I cannot give you much hope of a cure from the process that has hitherto proved so successful.... I see no chance whatever of a "fairer she" coming to cauterize, by a new flame, the wound inflicted by this marvellous Miss Willoughby." "They jest at scars who never felt a wound!" exclaimed the young man fervently.... "Mary!... Elizabeth!... have you none of you a feeling of pity for me?... Oh! how I envy you all!... for you can gaze and bask in safety in the beams of this glorious brightness, while I, as my mother says, am doomed to be scorched incurably!" "If you have any discretion, James, you will run away," said his eldest sister.... "Her generous aunt, you know, has declared that she shall never have any of uncle Barnaby's money; and if you stay you may depend upon it that, while you are making love to the niece, I shall be winning the heart of the aunt, and contrive by my amiable cajoleries to get your share and my own too of all she so nobly means to bestow upon us." "Nonsense, Mary!... Don't believe her, James!..." cried the worthy matter-of-fact Elizabeth. "If you are really in love with her already, I think it would be a very good scheme indeed for you to marry her, because then Mrs. Barnaby could be doing her duty to you both at once."