THE prospect of taking up my summer residence in the Temple or the Bicêtre, or of making a voyage to Cayenne, had so few charms for me, that I drove George out immediately for post horses, and set about packing my trunk myself. While thus occupied I debated with myself which route to take, with fifteen Louis d'ors; for M. Brelon had encreased his demand from three to five Louis, pour prendre congé. I could not very well make the tour of Europe; and, unluckily, I had troubled myself too little with matters of business since my departure from Hamburgh, to recollect on the instant any one of my father's correspondents to whom I could apply for assistance in this emergency, though there were certainly many in Paris who would willingly have rendered it. "To Bourdeaux, said I, at length half aloud; we will pay our devoirs to M. Gerson, and the trio of would-be brides; the old fellow surely will not suffer his son-in-law to want cash, and I will waver between the attractions of his three daughters till I find an opportunity to escape from them all.'

The

We reached Orleans without stop ping; my exchequer was very low, and I was unwilling to appear as a beggar before M. Gerson. bracelets of my unknown bride came as if called for; I dispatched George to a jeweller in the town to convert them into cash. They might have been worth about three hundred Louis d'ors. George brought me eighty for them, which he had accepted only conditionally, subject to my approval. I gingled them in my purse, and we proceeded.

The journey to Bourdeaux was both quick and agreeable. Sometimes my heart flew back to Paris to the fair incognita; yet as my whole life in that city recurred to me but as the remembrance of a dream, so the idea of my fruitless

passion was like the yet fainter and more uncertain recollections of something long past, which frequently leave us at last in doubt whether they owe their existence to an actual occurrence, or are the mere offspring of our imagination.

The impressions gradually wore off entirely, and, on alighting at M. Gerson's door, I found myself in the best humour in the world for falling in love with each of the daughters by turns, and then returning to Hamburgh with the same alacrity and indifference as I had made the journey hither.

The house of my predestined father-in-law presented no contemptible appearance. My name seemed to sound as melodiously in the ears of the domestique as the chinking of a dozen gold pieces. He overloaded me with civility, and conducted me to M. Gerson. M. Gerson was a whole head below the Parisian standard; broad-shouldered, thin, and the curious eye might detect a slight aberration from the perpendicular in his figure. His forehead, unusually high, was lengthened by the baldness of his head almost to a caricature; while his hollow, leather coloured cheeks, seemed but a continuation of his gi gantic, wedge-like nose. So much the smaller, however, had nature, in a fantastic mood, formed both his eyes and his mouth. The former sparkled with all the vivacity of the French character, and the latter small, round, and puckered up, bore no bad resemblance to a rose-bud worked on a yellow ground.

He received me with a warm embrace, which he effected by means of a spring, that none but a Frenchman knows how to make with propriety; and, to my astonishment, there streamed from the opening, which served him for a mouth, such a flow of civility and compliment, that I could only find room for Monsieur-ah! pardonnez, to express all my gratitude.

It was near supper time, and in a quarter of an hour two covers were served up. "Surely, thought I, this prudent man keeps his three daughters under lock and key, that he may be able to guarantee them when disposed of. But if they have any share of their father's beauty their portraits will never grace the Louvre, and they can never be more secure from lovers than when they are in sight."

To my satisfaction, M. Gerson produced such excellent wine, that at the second bottle I forgot that I had come to Bourdeaux to sacrifice to Venus and the Graces, and not to Bacchus. For himself he drank enough to shame both a German of the old, and a Frenchman of the modern school. His cheeks began to glow with a lustre that at length rivalled the aurora borealis, and his eyes, contracting themselves to a point, twinkled like stars, while his heart, on the contrary, expanded itself to unbounded confidence and good will.

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"It is to your father," said he, "that I am in some measure indebted for my present affluence. You know I was once in his counting-house?" -"My father has told me as much."" He recommended me to M. Pegionneau, the former proprietor of this house, and this establishment. I had the good fortune to please him and his only daughter.”—“ I find that very natural M. Gerson."—" You are extremely polite, Mr. Waltmann, and I became his heir. My wife brought me three daughters, and died as she lay-in of the last."-" I can imagine the agony of your sufferings."—" Oh! hell has nothing to equal it. Very fortunately I found out a distant relation, a very good sort of a woman, who took charge of my house, and superintended the education of my daughters; and, in justice to her, I must say, that she acquitted herself to my entire satisfaction; for while she inculcated those domestic virtues and habits, which form the principal charm of private life, she did not neglect such accomplishments as would qualify them to move in the highest circles. In short, my happiness had been complete had nature formed them less beautiful, or, at least, had she not

formed them all equally lovely."— "A very singular misfortune your's M. Gerson.""I will confess to you my weakness; at first I considered it my greatest happiness, and made it my proudest boast, that all Bourdeaux, nay the whole province, could produce nothing to equal the beauty of my daughters. There was no lack of admirers."-" That of course," said I," and I only wonder to see the walls of your house in such good condition."-" Who addressed themselves first to one, then to another of my girls. But they were all too prudent and too mindful of the excellent precepts of their kind instructress to suffer themselves to be seduced into attachments, from which no honourable alliance could result. They wished first to know their future husbands, and then to love them; and every gentleman, who honoured them with his attentions, was received freely at my house, in order that he might become better acquainted with my daughters, while, at the same time, he thus exposed himself to their probation.”. "What wisdom! Surely your daughters are not only the Graces, but the Minervas also of France?"

"In truth, very good girls, Mr. Waltmann. But this laudable circumspection led to very disagreeable consequences. Not a single young man of taste and sentiment visited us who did not, on a nearer acquaintance with my daughters, become more and more undetermined in his choice. And this difficulty was encreased by their having reciprocally bound themselves to give no gentleman the least encouragement, and also to suppress every feeling of love in their own bosoms, till his choice had fallen on one or other of them."-"Incredible!""I should doubt it myself if I had not had experience of the fact; but, upon the word of an honest man, they have lost at least thirty handsome offers by these means.""That is ten for each-but your account makes me fear that I have made the journey from Hamburgh hither merely for the satisfaction of adding one towards filling up the second score."-" Permit me, Sir; in a friendly letter to your father I lamented my misfortune, acquaint