Mrs. Dodd, and her countenance lightened again.
Her sex will generally compound with whoever
can give as well as take. Now she had extracted a
real, grave, prescription, she acquiesced in the ball,
though not a county one; "to satisfy your whim,
my good kind friend, to whom I owe so much."

Sampson called on his way back to town, and,
in course of conversation, praised Nature for her
beautiful instincts, one of which, he said, had
inspired Miss Julee, at a credulous age, not to
swallow "the didly drastics of the tinkerin dox."

Mrs. Dodd smiled, and requested permission
to contradict him; her daughter had taken the
several prescriptions.

Sampson inquired brusquely if she took him
for a fool.

She replied calmly: "No; for a very clever,
but rather opinionated personage."

"Opininated? So is ivery man who has
grounds for his opinin. D'ye think, because
Dockers Short, an' Bist, an' Kinyon, an' Cuckoo,
an' Jackdaw, an' Starling, an' Co., don't know
the dire effecks of calomel an' drastics on the
buddy, I don't know't? Her eye, her tongue,
her skin, her voice, her elastic walk, all tell me she
has not been robbed of her vital resources. Why,
if she had taken that genteel old thief Short's
rimidies alone, the girl's gums would be sore,
                And herself at Dith's door."

Mrs. Dodd was amused. "Julia, this is so
like the gentlemen; they are in love with
Argument. They go on till they reason themselves
out of their Reason. Why beat about the bush;
when there she sits?"

"What, go t' a wumman for the truth, when I
can go t' infallible Inference?"

"You may always go to my David's daughter
for the truth," said Mrs. Dodd, with dignity. She
then looked the inquiry; and Julia replied to her
look as follows: first, she coloured very high;
then, she hid her face in both her hands; then, rose
and turning her neck swiftly, darted a glance of
fiery indignation and bitter reproach on Dr.
Meddlesome, and left the apartment mighty stag-like.

"Maircy on us!" cried Sampson. " Did ye see
that, ma'am? Yon's just a bonny basilisk.
Another such thunderbolt as she dispinsed, and
ye'll be ringing for the maid to sweep up the good
physician's ashes."

Julia did not return till the good physician was
gone back to London. Then she came in with a
rush, and, demonstrative toad, embraced Mrs.
Dodd's knees, and owned she had cultivated her
geraniums with all those medicines, liquid and
solid; and only one geranium had died of them.

There is a fascinating age, when an intelligent
virgin is said to fluctuate between childhood and
womanhood. Let me add that these seeming
fluctuations depend much on the company she is
in; the budding virgin is princess of chameleons:
and, to confine ourselves to her two most
piquant contrasts, by her mother's side she is
always more or less childlike ; but, let a nice young
fellow engage her apart, and, hey presto ! she shall
be every inch a woman; perhaps at no period of
her life are the purely mental characteristics of
her sex so supreme in her : so her type, the rosebud,
excels in essence of rosehood the rose itself.

My reader has seen Julia Dodd play both
parts; but it is her child's face she has now been
turning for several pages; so it may be prudent
to remind him she has shone on Alfred Hardie in
but one light; a young, but Juno-like, woman.
Had she shown "my puppy" her childish qualities,
he would have despised her; he had left
that department himself so recently. But Nature
guarded the budding fair from such a disaster.

We left Alfred Hardie standing in the moonlight
gazing at her lodging. Sudden! But, let
slow coaches deny it as loudly as they like, fast
coaches exist; and Love is a passion, which like
Hate, Envy, Avarice, &c , has risen to a great
height in a single day. Not that Alfred's was
"Love at first sight," for he had seen her beauty
in the full blaze of day with no deeper feeling
than admiration; but in the moonlight he came
under more sovereign spells than a fair face:
amongst these were her virtues and her voice.
The narrative of their meeting has indicated the
first, and, as to the latter, Julia was not one of
those whose beauty goes out with a candle,
Her voice was that rich, mellow, moving organ,
which belongs to no rank nor station; is born, not
made, and, flow it from the lips of dairymaid or
countess, touches every heart, gentle or simple,
that is truly male. And this divine contralto,
full, yet penetrating, Dame Nature had inspired
her to lower when she was moved or excited,
instead of raising it: and then she was enchanting.
All unconsciously she cast this crowning
spell on Alfred, and he adored her. In a word, he
caught a child-woman away from its mother; his
fluttering captive turned, put on composure, and
bewitched him.

She left him, and the moonlight night seemed to
blacken. But within his young breast all was
light, new light. He leaned opposite her window
in an Elysian reverie, and let the hours go by.
He seemed to have vegetated till then, and lo!
true life had dawned. He thought he should
love to die for her. And, when he was calmer, he
felt he was to live for her, and welcomed his.
destiny with rapture. He passed the rest of the
Oxford term in a soft ecstasy; called often on
Edward, and took a sudden and prodigious
interest in him; and counted the days glide by and
the happy time draw near, when he should be four
months in the same town with his enchantress.
This one did not trouble the doctors; he glowed
with a steady fire; no heats and chills, and sad
misgivings; for one thing he was not a woman, a
being tied to that stake, Suspense, and compelled
to wait, and wait, for others' actions. As the
inveterate Sampson would say:

                  He had the luck to be a male,
                  So, like a rat without a tail,
                  Could do, could do, could do.