At fourteen, I began to pick up her pocket-handkerchief, hunt for her thimble, accompany her in duets, and to read poetry to her, as she occupied herself with the little lady-like employments of the needle.

About the age of seventeen I began to compare cousin Anna, as I was permitted to call her, with the other young girls of my acquaintance, and the comparison was generally much in her favor.

It was also about this time that, as my admiration grew more warm and manifest, she became less confiding and less frank; I perceived too that, for a novelty, she now had some secrets that she did not choose to communicate to me, that she was more with her governess, and less in my society than formerly, and on one occasion (bitterly did I feel the slight) she actually recounted to her father the amusing incidents of a little birthday fete at which she had been present, and which was given by a gentleman of the vicinity, before she even dropped a hint to me, touching the delight she had experienced on the occasion.

I was, however, a good deal compensated for the slight by her saying, kindly, as she ended her playful and humorous account of the affair: "It would have made you laugh heartily, Jack, to see the droll manner in which the servants acted their parts" (there had been a sort of mystified masque), "more particularly the fat old butler, of whom they had made a Cupid, as Dick Griffin said, in order to show that love becomes drowsy and dull by good eating and drinking--I DO wish you COULD have been there, Jack." Anna was a gentle feminine girl, with a most lovely and winning countenance, and I did inherently like to hear her pronounce the word "Jack"-- it was so different from the boisterous screech of the Eton boys, or the swaggering call of my boon companions at Oxford! "I should have liked it excessively myself, Anna," I answered; "more particularly as you seem to have so much enjoyed the fun." "Yes, but that COULD NOT BE" interrupted Miss-Mrs.Norton, the governess.

"For Sir Harry Griffin is very difficult about his associates, and you know, my dear, that Mr.Goldencalf, though a very respectable young man himself, could not expect one of the oldest baronets of the county to go out of his way to invite the son of a stock-jobber to be present at a fete given to his own heir." Luckily for Miss-Mrs.Norton, Dr.Etherington had walked away the moment his daughter ended her recital, or she might have met with a disagreeable commentary on her notions concerning the fitness of associations.