a one comes to see weddings, that go away brides themselves.”—­Here the girl whispered something in a low voice, at which the general coloured up, was a little fluttered, and suffered himself to be drawn aside under the hedge, where he appeared to listen to her with great earnestness, and at the end paid her half-a-crown with the air of a man that has got the worth of his money.  The girl next made her attack upon Master Simon, who, however, was too old a bird to be caught, knowing that it would end in an attack upon his purse, about which he is a little sensitive.  As he has a great notion, however, of being considered a royster, he chucked her under the chin, played her off with rather broad jokes, and put on something of the rake-helly air, that we see now and then assumed on the stage, by the sad-boy gentleman of the old school.  “Ah, your honour,” said the girl, with a malicious leer, “you were not in such a tantrum last year, when I told you about the widow, you know who; but if you had taken a friend’s advice, you’d never have come away from Doncaster races with a flea in your ear!” There was a secret sting in this speech, that seemed quite to disconcert Master Simon.  He jerked away his hand in a pet, smacked his whip, whistled to his dogs, and intimated that it was high time to go home.  The girl, however, was determined not to lose her harvest.  She now turned upon me, and, as I have a weakness of spirit where there is a pretty face concerned, she soon wheedled me out of my money, and, in return, read me a fortune; which, if it prove true, and I am determined to believe it, will make me one of the luckiest men in the chronicles of Cupid.

I saw that the Oxonian was at the bottom of all this oracular mystery, and was disposed to amuse himself with the general, whose tender approaches to the widow have attracted the notice of the wag.  I was a little curious, however, to know the meaning of the dark hints which had so suddenly disconcerted Master Simon; and took occasion to fall in the rear with the Oxonian on our way home, when he laughed heartily at my questions, and gave me ample information on the subject.

The truth of the matter is, that Master Simon has met with a sad rebuff since my Christmas visit to the Hall.  He used at that time to be joked about a widow, a fine dashing woman, as he privately informed me.  I had supposed the pleasure he betrayed on these occasions resulted from the usual fondness of old bachelors for being teased about getting married, and about flirting, and being fickle and false-hearted.  I am assured, however, that Master Simon had really persuaded himself the widow had a kindness for him; in consequence of which he had been at some extraordinary expense in new clothes, and had actually got Frank Bracebridge to order him a coat from Stultz.  He began to throw out hints about the importance of a man’s settling himself in life before he grew old; he would look grave, whenever the widow and matrimony were mentioned in the same sentence; and privately asked the opinion of the Squire and parson about the prudence of marrying a widow with a rich jointure, but who had several children.