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152
ROMANCE AND REALITY.

can have contrived to keep so much of open, fresh, and kindly feeling. She is very national, and I am sure you have read her beautiful Irish stories. I think it is she who says, that Englishmen do not know how to make love. True enough! An Englishman seems to think he is conferring a favour, which the lady cannot too highly estimate, by the mere act of falling in love with her; but if any could inspire him with the amiable accomplishment of love-making, it would be one of her own Irish coquettes—a creature of rainbow lightning."

"They are very real. Does she draw from herself? "

"Perhaps from the pleasures of memory; for she is now half of one of those happy couples which make one understand a phrase somewhat difficult to comprehend, from so seldom witnessing it—domestic felicity."

"Nay," exclaimed Emily, laughing, "are you not an Englishwoman—a native of that happy island so celebrated for its

'Dear delights of hearth and home?'"

"I nevertheless think that the blessings of matrimony, like those of poverty, belong rather to philosophy than reality. Let us see—not