have felt but as a child. It may have been as an intelligent child, perhaps; but it was only last night that I began to feel what it was to be a woman.

"On entering the drawing-room at Mr. Knighton's, we found many more people than we expected, but they were almost all ladies. The dinner-party, as I found afterwards, had consisted wholly of gentlemen; and the ladies we met there, in addition to the family trio, were invited, like ourselves, for the evening. At the first glance I own I was disappointed. These pages will record my follies and my blunders, as frankly stated as the most flattering triumphs that may be in store for me. And now, with no further preface, I will go on to record what occurred on this, to me, important evening; important as being my first entrance into what I consider as really good society.

"I had the pleasure of immediately perceiving that my appearance was approved. I believe most girls of seventeen are attractive in some way or other, and I have no reason for believing that I am likely to be an exception to this law of nature, for such it certainly is.

"Nay, I see no good reason why I should not state, merely by way of memorandum, that, whatever I may be hereafter, I certainly am, at present, handsome, though not, perhaps, absolutely beautiful; at least, I have seen others whom I think decidedly more beautiful than myself; and I note down this observation with pleasure, as a satisfactory proof that I am exempt from that lamentable species of weakness, which shrinks from acknowledging superiority in others. Neither was I at the moment, nor am I now, at all insensible to the fact that the good taste and costliness of my dress had something to do with the gracious glances with which I was received, when Mrs. Knighton presented me to her cousin Lady, Wilcox Smith, and the two Misses Wilcox Smith, her daughters.

of

"Where should I have been now (in the scale of society I mean), had I lacked courage at the important moment, when the amount my allowance was discussed? Thus far, at least, I may fairly congratulate myself upon my success, not only on this point, but on every other on which I had made

up my mind to succeed; and, by the help of a tolerably

clear judgment and a tolerably firm spirit, I flatter myself that I shall go on as I have begun.

"The Misses Wilcox Smith are any thing in the world but handsome, but they are both of them most decidedly lady-like, and quite the sort of people which just at first I am the most anxious to meet. By and by it may be different; when I have attained the place I wish for in society, I shall, I think, be less particular, as to mere outward appearance and manner, and endeavour to make my way among people of talent. Of course, the perfection of society is only to be found where both unite. And who shall say that the day will not come, when I may find myself the centre of both ?

"But I must not forget the recent past, while meditating on the distant future.

"Before I had time to give more than a hasty glance to the other ladies, the gentlemen who had formed the dinner-party entered the drawing-room. Papa was immediately introduced to several of them; but they were not any of them introduced to me, so I suppose it is not the fashion. There was, however, one of them who spoke to me, and that was the

Mr. Herbert who was one of the four who had dined with us last week. I did not think him quite so old-looking as I did at first, and, I dare say, many people would call him very handsome. He is tall, and rather fashionablelooking I believe, but not the least like my notion of what a young man ought to be. I suppose he is near-sighted, for he perpetually used a glass, and seemed to me to be looking at every lady in the room, one after the other, in a way that in most people would have seemed very impertinent. However, nobody seemed sufficiently to his taste to attract much of his attention after the first look, and he ended his survey by talking to my father all the time they were both sipping their coffee. But almost immediately after this was over, the drawing-room door was again thrown open by the footman, and Mrs. Mortlake and Miss Herbert' were announced. And then the mystery of the eye-glass was explained, for the moment this Mrs. Mortlake and Miss Herbert entered, Mr. Herbert joined them, and Louisa Knighton told me afterwards that the elder lady was his aunt and the younger his sister.

"As to the aunt, there was nothing very re

markable about her. She was not by any means handsomely dressed, but, somehow or other, she did not look like a low person, which I always think my aunt Buckhurst does. But as to her niece, I could almost be romantic enough to say that it did not signify a farthing how she was dressed, for she was so very beautiful, that she would have looked lovely in any thing. I thought she looked very young, almost young enough to be her brother's daughter. However, Louisa told me that she believed she was quite as old as I am, and that Mr. Herbert was only her half brother. And now I soon perceived that we had come too early, for a good many people came dropping in afterwards, and they were almost all young, both the men and the women; and then, to my great delight, Mrs. Knighton sat down to the pianoforte and began playing a waltz.

Margaret immediately came to me, and asked if she should introduce a partner; to which I readily answered in the affirmative. But before she set off upon this friendly errand, she was spared the trouble by Mr. Folkstone, who brought up a tall, thin young man, not very handsome, but very fashionably