’All this makes me sometimes a little nervous, and sometimes a little mischievous.  I was so provoked at my father and the lovers the other day for turning me completely out of their thoughts and society, that I began an attack upon Hazlewood, from which it was impossible for him, in common civility, to escape.  He insensibly became warm in his defence,—­I assure you, Matilda, he is a very clever as well as a very handsome young man, and I don’t think I ever remember having seen him to the same advantage,—­when, behold, in the midst of our lively conversation, a very soft sigh from Miss Lucy reached my not ungratified ears.  I was greatly too generous to prosecute my victory any farther, even if I had not been afraid of papa.  Luckily for me, he had at that moment got into a long description of the peculiar notions and manners of a certain tribe of Indians who live far up the country, and was illustrating them by making drawings on Miss Bertram’s work-patterns, three of which he utterly damaged by introducing among the intricacies of the pattern his specimens of Oriental costume.  But I believe she thought as little of her own gown at the moment as of the Indian turbands and cummerbands.  However, it was quite as well for me that he did not see all the merit of my little manoeuvre, for he is as sharp-sighted as a hawk, and a sworn enemy to the slightest shade of coquetry.

’Well, Matilda, Hazlewood heard this same halfaudible sigh, and instantly repented his temporary attentions to such an unworthy object as your Julia, and, with a very comical expression of consciousness, drew near to Lucy’s work-table.  He made some trifling observation, and her reply was one in which nothing but an ear as acute as that of a lover, or a curious observer like myself, could have distinguished anything more cold and dry than usual.  But it conveyed reproof to the self-accusing hero, and he stood abashed accordingly.  You will admit that I was called upon in generosity to act as mediator.  So I mingled in the conversation, in the quiet tone of an unobserving and uninterested third party, led them into their former habits of easy chat, and, after having served awhile as the channel of communication through which they chose to address each other, set them down to a pensive game at chess, and very dutifully went to tease papa, who was still busied with his drawings.  The chess-players, you must observe, were placed near the chimney, beside a little work-table, which held the board and men, the Colonel at some distance, with lights upon a library table; for it is a large old-fashioned room, with several recesses, and hung with grim tapestry, representing what it might have puzzled the artist himself to explain.

’"Is chess a very interesting game, papa?”

’"I am told so,” without honouring me with much of his notice.

’"I should think so, from the attention Mr. Hazlewood and Lucy are bestowing on it.”

’He raised his head “hastily and held his pencil suspended for an instant.  Apparently he saw nothing that excited his suspicions, for he was resuming the folds of a Mahratta’s turban in tranquillity when I interrupted him with—­“How old is Miss Bertram, sir?”