you?" Hamilton observed, "Not having the honour of being in public known to your ladyship, I have foreborne an application that I did not know would have been well received." She archly answered, "No application that so handsome a youth can make, can be ill received by a lady of any sensibility." Our hero thus challenged, could not avoid acceptance, and the attention that politeness required, necessarily compelled his absence from Maria. As he danced down, all the ladies of her own circle tittered, and whispered, "Cockatrice, as usual, has taken care to provide herself with one of the handsomest beaus which the place affords." Indeed the fair of the age, who united the bloom of youth with the graces of beauty, were exceeded by this middle-aged matron in the efficacy and effect of attractions. At forty she could distance the most charming girl of twenty; for her age had not im-
