And it was in part probably the same pride which led him to form, within the year, a new tie--his engagement to Mademoiselle Charpentier, or Miss Carpenter as she was usually called,--the daughter of a French royalist of Lyons who had died early in the revolution.

She had come after her father's death to England, chiefly, it seems, because in the Marquis of Downshire, who was an old friend of the family, her mother knew that she should find a protector for her children.

Miss Carpenter was a lively beauty, probably of no great depth of character.

The few letters given of hers in Mr.Lockhart's life of Scott, give the impression of an amiable, petted girl, of somewhat thin and _espiegle_ character, who was rather charmed at the depth and intensity of Scott's nature, and at the expectations which he seemed to form of what love should mean, than capable of realizing them.

Evidently she had no inconsiderable pleasure in display; but she made on the whole a very good wife, only one to be protected by him from every care, and not one to share Scott's deeper anxieties, or to participate in his dreams.