Guy Mannering.

GUY iANNERING. 203
And 0 how delighted shall I be when I can say, Come,
Matilda, and be the guest of your faithful Julia!
"I am at present the inmate of Mr. and Mrs. Mervyn,
old friends of my father. The latter is precisely a good
sort of woman;-lady-like and housewifely, but, for accomplishments or fancy —good lack, my dearest Matilda,
your friend might as well seek sympathy from Mrs.
Teach'em,-you see I have not forgot school nicknames.
Mervyn is a different-quite a different being from my
father; yet he amuses and endures me. He is fat and
good-natured, gifted with strong shrewd sense, and some
powers of humour; but having been handsome, I suppose,
in his youth, has still some pretension to be a beau garcon,
as well as an enthusiastic agriculturist. I delight to
make him scramble to the tops of eminences and to the
foot of waterfalls, and am obliged in turn to admire his
turnips, his lucern, and his timothy-grass. He thinks me,
I fancy, a simple romantic Miss, with some-(the word
will be out) beauty, and some good-nature; and I hold
that the gentleman has good taste for the female outside,
and do not expect he should comprehend my sentiments
farther. So he rallies, hands, and hobbles, (for the dear
creature has got the gout too,) and tells old stories of high
life, of which he has seen a great deal; and I listen, and
smile, and look as pretty, as pleasant, and as simple as I
can,-and we do very well.
" But, alas! my dearest Matilda, how would time pass
away, even in this paradise of romance, tenanted as it is
by a pair assorting so ill with the scenes around them,
were it not for your fidelity in replying to my uninteresting details? Pray do not fail to write three times a-week
at least-you can be at no loss what to say."