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 think of nothing but joking;" and then, telling Juliet to follow her, "I can do no less," she added, as she entered the hall, "than be as good as my word to this poor young music-maker, to save her a chiding, poor creature, for staying, dawdling, out so long; when ten to one but poor Mrs. Ireton has wanted her a hundred times, for one odd thing or another. But I shall take all the fault upon myself for the last part of the job, because I can't deny but I held her a minute or two by her arm. But what she was gossipping about before we came up to her, my good friend Mr. Giles and I, is what I don't pretend to say; though I should like to know very well; for it had but an odd appearance, I must own; both you gentlemen having been talked of so much, in the town, about this young person."

The most pointed darts of wit, and even the poisoned shafts of malice, are less disconcerting to delicacy, than the unqualified bluntness of the curious un-