"I wonder what," exclaimed Mrs. Palmer, good-humouredly, "you young ladies would choose, if left to yourselves."
"I can tell you," answered Isabella; "a lover for Helen must be a pale, pensive, dark young man. He must be given to fits of abstraction, and have something mysterious about him. Had we lived in the time of the Peninsula war, her heart could not have stood a week's siege from a young officer who wore his arm in a sling. As to how they were to have existed afterwards, they would, at least Helen would, never have thought it worth a moment's consideration. She would have formed some vague notion of
'A tent on shore, a galley on the sea,'
or a cottage 'all woodbines and roses,' and,, but dear Helen, I will spare your imagination, and not finish my picture."
Mrs. Palmer looked a little alarmed, and said:—
"I think love all very proper in marriage, under certain restrictions. I do not much like love in a cottage, and yet I have known people very happy in cottages. But well-educated young ladies ought never to think about love, and yet I do not know how it is, they always will. However, not to be talking too much on such a delicate subject—we have not yet heard what Georgiana would like."
"Georgiana," answered Isabella, "would like her myrtle wreath made of strawberry leaves. She has a great idea of a duke, but would submit to be a
