by the mutual ingrafture of connubial sympathy; and they strained and pulled together, in their efforts to stretch the income of Eyrymount into the means of supporting a state to which it was inadequate. An only child—a female, of considerable pretensions to beauty, simple and humble, and highly interesting in her manners, and called, after her mother, Dione, a title of which Madam Græme was very proud—added considerably to the pride of the haughty couple. They expected “to turn her to account,” and had already fixed their eyes on an old rich nabob, called Benjamin Rice, who had taken up his residence at Pansey Lodge, in the neighbourhood, as a very suitable and easy kind of person, who would likely have no objection to enter without much struggle into the matrimonial noose. They never thought of consulting Dione on the subject; for, though they did not dispute that she had “some interest” in the affair, they took for granted that, as one of the family, she was solicitous for the enhancement of its fortunes, and would at once sell herself for the good of the Græmes of Eyrymount. The nabob was not averse, at least in the first instance, to partake of the fine dinners, served up as a costly kind of bait at Eyrymount House. The dyspepsia, which, along with his rupees, he had caught in India, made him nice in the selection of his food and wine; and no cost was spared by the fortune-hunting Amphytrions, to procure for him whatever might please his palate. Neither had the nabob any disinclination to feast his eyes on the fair face of Dione, who received his looks and attentions very much in the way that children do that emetic Indian shrub, called ipecacuanha. The tyranny of her proud mother, however, prevented her from shewing symptoms of displeasure, when she felt herself subjected to his scrutiny; and, as yet, no hint had been given that he was selected as the man who was to make her “happy for life.”