colouring, that the bulk of the nabob’s fortune would be hers if she ‘played her cards well.’  But she did not play her cards well, as the event turned out; for the old splenetic Indian tired very soon of the monotonous ’Really!’—­the sole response to his wonderful narratives of tiger-hunting and Eastern marvels in general.  At length, Mr Elliston bluntly gave his visitor to understand that he wished to see Miss Paulina; and poor, crestfallen Miss Bonderlay returned home, and Miss Paulina departed in her turn to fill the vacant place at the nabob’s board.  She remained a considerable time longer than her elder sister had done; and it was surmised that ‘Indeed!’ had proved more agreeable than ‘Really!’ But, alas! for human foresight and conjecture, the second Miss Bonderlay re-appeared in her native town for the purpose of despatching the third relief in the person of Miss Constantia.  ’The young one will have a human tongue,’ muttered the choleric Indian:  ’I want a companion, not a parrot.’  The poor gentleman never imagined that there could be three parrots in one family; and he naturally concluded, that his choice had fallen on the right niece at last.

When he found out his mistake—­and we need hardly say that he was not long about that—­his chagrin and consternation may be imagined.  Indeed, had it not been for the presence of a certain Major George, there is no doubt that when he heard the sweet ‘Impossible!’ of Miss Constantia, he would instantly have consigned her to the banishment and oblivion of her sisters.  But Major George’s quiet influence restrained the threatened ebullition of wrath; though when his best stories and jokes after dinner were received with a gentle ‘impossible!’ which meant either ‘really,’ or ‘indeed,’ or anything else it might pass for, Uncle Elliston struck the table violently with his clenched hand, exclaiming in a passion:  ’Impossible? madam—­impossible?  Do you mean to give me the lie?  I tell you, the anecdote I have just related is perfectly possible, and, moreover, perfectly true.  What do you mean by impossible?  I hate impossibles.  Nothing is impossible!  Do you mean to insult me, madam—­heigh?’

‘Impossible, dear uncle—­impossible!’ meekly ejaculated the gentle fair, affrighted at such an unusual display of excitement; and it was fortunate that Major George called off her uncle’s attention from poor Miss Constantia’s unconscious delinquency.

Major George was an Indian crony of Uncle Elliston’s; considerably younger, however, than the latter, and, as the spinsters remarked sententiously, only sallow enough to be interesting, and only old enough to be sedate!  His purse was amply filled, and Major George was on the look-out for a wife; but being most painfully shy and sensitive, it seemed rather a doubtful case if he would succeed in his aspirings.  With the nabob, Major George was an immense favourite; but except that they had hunted tigers together, there seemed no adequate reason for so strong a preference—­the