the love-affair between the two young people went on without interruption or opposition.  It seemed perfectly natural and proper that they should be brought together.  It was not, therefore, until a formal betrothal began to loom up, that the seniors on either side bethought themselves of the consequences.  Neither party was a beggar; but neither was in possession of sufficient estate to render a speedy marriage advisable.  It was concluded, then, to prohibit any engagement, which must inevitably extend over several years, between two young persons whose acquaintance was of so modern a date, and whose positions involved a prolonged and wide separation.  To this arrangement it would appear that Honora yielded a more implicit assent than her lover.  His feelings were irretrievably interested; and he still proposed to himself to press his suit without intermission during the term of his endurance.  His mistress, whose affections had not yet passed entirely beyond her own control, was willing to receive as a friend the man whom she was forbidden to regard as an elected husband.

It was by the representations of Miss Seward, who strongly urged on him the absolute necessity of his adherence to trade, if he wished to secure the means of accomplishing matrimony, that Andre was now persuaded to renounce, for some years longer, his desire for the army.  He went back to London, and applied himself diligently to his business.  An occasional visit to Lichfield, and a correspondence that he maintained with Miss Seward, served to keep his flame sufficiently alive.  His letters are vivacious and characteristic, and the pen-and-ink drawings with which his text was embellished gave them additional interest.  Here is a specimen of them.  It will be noted, that, according to the sentimental fashion of the day, his correspondent must be called Julia because her name is Anna.

“London, October 19, 1769.

“From the midst of books, papers, bills, and other implements of gain, let me lift up my drowsy head awhile to converse with dear Julia.  And first, as I know she has a fervent wish to see me a quill-driver, I must tell her that I begin, as people are wont to do, to look upon my future profession with great partiality.  I no longer see it in so disadvantageous a light.  Instead of figuring a merchant as a middle-aged man, with a bob wig, a rough beard, in snuff-coloured clothes, grasping a guinea in his red hand, I conceive a comely young man, with a tolerable pig-tail, wielding a pen with all the noble fierceness of the Duke of Marlborough brandishing a truncheon upon a sign-post, surrounded with types and emblems, and canopied with cornucopias that disembogue their stores upon his head; Mercuries reclin’d upon bales of goods; Genii playing with pens, ink, and paper; while, in perspective, his gorgeous vessels ‘launched on the bosom of the silver Thames’ are wafting to distant lands the produce of this commercial nation.  Thus all the mercantile glories crowd