“And do you indeed have houris in England?” exclaimed the young lady.  “In America you must be content with society of a much more earthly constitution!”

“Upon my word, miss,” cried our young gentleman, “you compel me to confess that I find myself in the society of one vastly more to my inclination than that of any houri of my acquaintance.”

With such lively badinage, occasionally lapsing into more serious discourse, the dinner passed off with a great deal of pleasantness to our young gentleman, who had prepared himself for something prodigiously dull and heavy.  After the repast, a pipe of tobacco in the summer-house and a walk in the garden so far completed his cheerful impressions that when he rode away towards Pig and Sow Point he found himself accompanied by the most lively, agreeable thoughts imaginable.  Her wit, how subtle!  Her person, how beautiful!  He surprised himself smiling with a fatuous indulgence of his enjoyable fancies.

Nor did the young lady’s thoughts, though doubtless of a more moderate sort, assume a less pleasing perspective.  Our young gentleman was favored with a tall, erect figure, a high nose, and a fine, thin face expressive of excellent breeding.  It seemed to her that his manners possessed an elegance and a grace that she had never before discovered beyond the leaves of Mr. Richardson’s ingenious novels.  Nor was she unaware of the admiration of herself that his countenance had expressed.  Upon so slender a foundation she amused herself for above an hour, erecting such castles in the air that, had any one discovered her thought, she would have perished of mortification.

But though our young lady so yielded herself to the enjoyment of such silly dreams as might occur to any miss of a lively imagination and vivacious temperament, the reader is to understand that she has yet so much dignity and spirit as to cover these foolish and romantic fancies with a cloak of so delicate and so subtle a reserve that when the young gentleman called to pay his respects the next afternoon he quitted her presence ten times more infatuated with her charms than he had been the day before.

Nor can it be denied that our young lady knew perfectly well how to make the greatest use of such opportunities.  She already possessed a great deal of experience in teasing the other sex with those delicious though innocent torments that cause the eyes of the victim to remain awake at night and the fancy to dream throughout the day.

Such presently became the condition of our young gentleman that at the end of the month he knew not whether his present life had continued for weeks or for years; in the charming infatuation that overpowered him he considered nothing of time, every other consideration being engulfed in his desire for the society of his charmer.  Cards and dice lost for him their accustomed pleasure, and when a gay society would be at Belford’s Palace it was with the utmost difficulty that he assumed so much patience as to take his part in those dissipations that there obtained.  Relieved from them, he flew with redoubled ardor back to the gratification of his passion again.