CHAP. XXII.

When Florio fpeaks, what virgin could withstand,
If gentle Damon did not squeeze her hand ?
With varying vanities, from every part,
They shift the moving toyshop of their heart;

Where wigs with wigs, with fwordknots fwordknots ftrive,

Beaus banish beaus, and coaches coaches drive.

РОРЕ.

WHILE lady Monteith exerted all the powers of her mind to enjoy fame and to diffuse happiness, and her beloved Lucy Evans pursued the humbler but furer path of confcientiously endeavouring to difcharge her duty to God and man, lady Arabella Macdonald, already embarked on the fea of gaiety and diffipation, applied all her thoughts to the attainment of two doubtful bleffings, a husband and

a coronet.

Difinterested love is always a very favourite topic with youth and beauty. E 5

After

After a fly observation, that pretty little Geraldine might owe fome attractions to Powerscourt manor, fhe entreated that her aunt would cautiously fupprefs the communication of her intended liberality; and, by hinting that jointures always reverted to the family from which they were granted, leave her to depend upon her own radiant eyes for procuring a fplendid establishment. Oroondates himself must feel fome increase of rap ture, if, while his bride curtefied to him after the performance of the marriage ceremony, she at the fame time whifpered to him, that she was the acknowledged heiress of four thousand a year. But if lady Arabella's husband had any fpark of Oroondates' gallantry, his rapture would folely refult from the delicate referve of the lady, and he would undoubtedly reply," Wealth cannot add to the tranfport I feel in calling you

"mine. Employ the gaudy toys you " mention in whatever way you pleafe;

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they will be no otherwife welcome to me, than as they promote your fatif"faction; for your heart is the only "treasure which I wish to retain."

In ages of very remote antiquity lovers might talk in this ftyle; but as all authentic memorials of thefe periods are unhappily loft, fceptics are inclined to doubt the actual exiftence of fuch very difinterested heroifm. Poor lady Arabella found that the fwains who flourished in the close of the eighteenth century were of a very different order of beings. Perceiving that the first London winter produced more ftarers than adorers, fhe fet out for Bath. Here Cupid in vain. continued to shoot his arrows, from her eyes; the apathy of diffipation, more invulnerable than the fhield of Minerva, defended the intended victims. Idle-. E 6 nefs

nefs is faid to be the mother of Love; but not the idleness of public places. The lounging beaus, as they fauntered arm in arm along the rooms, occafionally cheered her spirits with a paffing " How <c d'ye do," and then joined in protesting, "that he was an immenfe fine girl, and "that it was a fhame her father had not " left her a fortune." The converfation generally concluded with a laugh at the repulfive state of lady Madelina, which nobody feemed willing to infringe.

Lady Arabella now determined to try the effect of rural fcenes; and, having chofen the then fashionable retirement of Brighton as the probable refidence of the vagrant loves, fhe perfuaded lady Madelina, who went to Bath to fix a flying gout, that her complaint was certainly fcorbutic, for which fea-bathing was the only fpecific; and there at laft the expected lover appeared in the form of

of Sir Phelim O'Connaught, a very perfonable and very affiduous Irish gentleman of good family, and unqueftionable honour. Though lady Arabella had protefted that fhe never would furrender to any thing beneath a coronet, Sir Phelim's addreffes were fo perfectly rhapfodical, that her heart feemed to flutter, when at this critical period its tranquillity was re-established by the appearance of fome very ungenteel companyI mean, a couple of fheriff's officers. Sir Phelim was fo fhocked at the audacity of fuch low villains intruding upon the haunts of gentlemen, that he was never feen abroad after their arrival. It afterwards appeared, that his attachment was not fo perfectly difinterefted as has been fuppofed; for that he had acquired fome knowledge of the difpofal of lady Madelina's jointure.

Lady