be a mother;” “unfeeling thing that I was, the sensibilities of the maternal heart were Greek and Hebrew to me,” and so on. In due course of nature this young gentleman took his degrees in teething, measles, whooping-cough. That was a terrible time for me. The mamma’s letters became a perfect shout of affliction; never woman was so put upon by calamity; never human being stood in such need of sympathy. I was frightened at first, and wrote back pathetically; but I soon found out there was more cry than wool in the business, and relapsed into my natural cruel insensibility. As to the youthful sufferer, he weathered each storm like a hero. Five times was that youth in articulo mortis, and five times did he miraculously revive.

In the course of years there arose ominous murmurings against Alfred the First. M. de Bassompierre had to be appealed to, debts had to be paid, some of them of that dismal and dingy order called “debts of honour;” ignoble plaints and difficulties became frequent. Under every cloud, no matter what its nature, Ginevra, as of old, called out lustily for sympathy and aid. She had no notion of meeting any distress single-handed. In some shape, from some quarter or other, she was pretty sure to obtain her will; and so she got on, fighting the battle of life by proxy, and on the whole, suffering as little as any human being I have ever known.