`Very pretty, i' faith!' said he, after attentively regarding it for a few seconds--`and a very fitting study for a young lady--Spring just opening into summer--morning just approaching noon--girlhood just ripening into womanhood--and hope just verging on fruition. She's a sweet creature! but why didn't you make her black hair?'

`I thought light hair would suit her better. You see I have made her blue-eyed, and plump, and fair and rosy.'

`Upon my word--a very Hebe! I should fall in love with her, if I hadn't the artist before me. Sweet innocent! she's thinking there will come a time when she will be wooed and won like that pretty hen-dove, by as fond and fervent a lover; and she's thinking how pleasant it will be, and how tender and faithful he will find her'

`And perhaps,' suggested I, `how tender and faithful she shall find him.'

`Perhaps--for there is no limit to the wild extravagance of hope's imaginings, at such an age.'

`Do you call that, then, one of her wild, extravagant delusions?'

`No; my heart tells me it is not. I might have thought so once, but now, I say, give me the girl I love, and I will swear eternal constancy to her and her alone, through summer and winter, through youth and age, and life and death! if age and death must come.'

He spoke this in such serious earnest that my heart bounded with delight; but the minute after he changed his tone, and asked, with a significant smile, if I had `any more portraits.'

`No,' replied I, reddening with confusion and wrath, But my portfolio was on the table; he took it up, and coolly sat down to examine its contents.

`Mr Huntingdon, those are my unfinished sketches,' cried I, `and I never let anyone see them.'

And I placed my hand on the portfolio to wrest it from him; but he maintained his hold, assuring me that he `liked shed sketches of all things.'

`But I hate them to be seen,' returned I. `I can't let you have it, indeed!'

`Let me have its bowels then,' said he; and just as I wrenched the portfolio from his hand, he deftly abstracted the greater part of its contents, and after turning them over a moment, he cried out,--

`Bless my stars, here's another!' and slipped a small oval of ivory paper into his waistcoat pocket--a complete miniature portrait, that I had sketched with such tolerable success, as to be induced to colour it with great pains and care. But I was determined he should not keep it.

`Mr Huntingdon,' cried I, `I insist upon having that back! It is mine, and you have no right to take it. Give it me, directly--I'll never forgive you, if you don't!'

But the more vehemently I insisted, the more he aggravated my distress by his insulting, gleeful laugh. At length, however, he restored it to me, saying--

`Well, well, since you value it so much, I'll not deprive you of it.'

To show him how I valued it, I tore it in two, and threw it into the fire. He was not prepared for this. His merriment suddenly ceasing, he stared in mute amazement at the consuming treasure; and then, with a careless `Humph! I'll go and shoot now,' he turned on his heel, and vacated the apartment by the window as he came, and setting on his hat with an air, took up his gun and walked away, whistling as