Now the _petit bel chose_ that had thus produced such an effect upon the moral and physical economy of this big son of Mars, was no other than a mere toy of a thing—a little milliner called Julia Briggs—scarcely so big, when divested of the padding and stuffing with which her art enabled her to supply her deficiency of natural size, as one of his huge limbs. But this may be no manner of marvel to those who are versant in the mysteries of love, who, being himself a small creature, seems to delight in throwing into the smallest of his victims the greatest portion of his power. It is difficult to see philosophically any final cause in the curious fact in nature; but surely, the never a man, who has any observation in him, will deny, that pigmy beauties and colossal swains (and _vice versa_) have a singular power of producing in each other the tender passion. It may be owing to nature’s love of the _juste milieu_, that thus induces her to take this mode of keeping up a reasonable _mean size_ among human creatures, or it may be any one of a thousand other speculations; but what care we for such theories, when we have the fact to state as an undoubted truth, that Gustavus fell in love with Julia Briggs, as standing like a mighty Anak, in the Canongate of Edinburgh, he saw the little creature skipping along, twisting her little limbs as if she would have dislocated her joints in her efforts to appear graceful, in the eyes of mankind generally, and in those of the gigantic Gustavus, whom she had often seen looking after her, in particular! Successful beyond any prior example of her wriggling evolution of her graces, the little baggage—as quick in her eye as ever were Pip, Trip, or Skip, the maids of honour (according to Drayton) of Queen Mab—saw at once that she had hit the proper twirl and twinkle, at last, that would subdue the involuntary muscle that had so long been useless beneath the ribs of the great Gustavus. The moment the effect was produced, the sinews of his body began to move, and away he stalked after her, with strides as long as the whole height _a capite ad calcem_ of the quarry upon which he intended to pounce. It spoke well of the power of “her harness of gossamer,” that it stood the tug of so huge a victim; and, as she turned her twinkling eye to observe the triumph of her power, she did not fail to rivet the chains by some higher displays of graceful contortion, that made his eyeballs roll in the large sockets, as if he had seen a hobgoblin, in place of Julia Briggs, the _petite marchande de modes_.