giving promise of too matronly a womanhood; but at the time I saw her, nothing could have been more beautiful; and, above all, there was an inexpressible charm in the clear transparent darkness of her colourless skin, into which you thought you could look; her shoulders, and the upper part of her arms, were peculiarly beautiful. Nothing is so exquisitely lovely as the upper part of a beautiful woman’s arm, and yet we have lived to see this admirable feature shrouded and lost in those abominable gigots.--Why won’t you, Master Kit North, lend a hand, and originate a crusade against those vile appendages? I will lead into action if you like--“Woe unto the women that sew pillows to all armholes,” Ezekiel, xiii. 18. May I venture on such a quotation in such a place?--She was extremely like her brother; and her fine face was overspread with the pale cast of thought a settled melancholy, like the shadow of a cloud in a calm day on a summer landscape, mantled over her fine features; and although she moved with the air of a princess, and was possessed of that natural politeness which far surpasses all artificial polish, yet the heaviness of her heart was apparent in every motion, as well as in all she said. Many people labour under an unaccountable delusion, imagining, in their hallucination, that a Frenchwoman, for instance, or even an Englishwoman nay, some in their madness have been heard to say that a Scotchwoman has been known to walk. Egregious errors all! An Irishwoman of the true Milesian descent can walk a step or two sometimes, but all other women, fair or brown, short or tall, stout or thin, only stump, shuffle, jig, or amble--none but a Spaniard can walk. Once or twice she tried to enter into conversation with me on indifferent subjects; but there was a constant tendency to approach (against her own prearranged determination) the one, all-absorbing one, the fate of her poor brother. “Oh, had you but known him, Mr Cringle had you but known him in his boyhood, before bad company had corrupted him!” exclaimed she, after having asked me if he died penitent and she turned away and wept. “Francisca,” said a low hoarse female voice from the other room; “Francisca, ven aca, mi querida hermana.” The sweet girl rose, and sped across the floor with the grace of Taglioni, (oh, the legs Taglionis! as poor dear Bang would have ventured to have said, if the sylphide had then been known,) and presently returning, whispered something to her mother, who rose and drew Don Picador aside. The waspish old man shook himself clear of his wife, as he said with indecent asperity--“No, no, she will but make a fool of herself.” His wife drew herself up. “She never made a fool of herself, Don Picador, but once; and God forgive those who were the cause of it. It is not kind of you, it is not kind.” “Well, well,” rejoined the querulous old man, “do as you will, do as you will,--always crossing me, always crossing.”