Mrs Fife had prevented from undertaking herself; and she had just re-approached the drawing-room door, when her senses, as well as her steps, were arrested by a couple of active female voices in full play. "Clack clack! clack! clack clack!" Miss Leslie could not distinguish whether queries, rejoinders, interjections or conjunctions prevailed. It seemed a concentrated Babel, which no human ingenuity was calculated to detect or to understand.

"Clack clack! clack! clack! clack!" and Miss Leslie took to flight.

Miss McTavish was obliged to follow her example.-Mrs Fife's cold had taken a turn decidedly and dangerously feverish, supposed to have been occasioned by too great anxiety in discussing the merits of Mr Crimpfit's hasty marriage; and from too much fatigue in watching the final departure of the amiable friends of the interesting bride. Be this as it may, a physician was required to be sent for; and Miss M'Tavish was politely dismissed, with an injunction, however, to return upon some early day—A proof that there exists in active minds a principle

capable of producing a sufficiency of bustle and disturbance even out of the worst of all materials-a political marriage and a wet day.

CHAPTER XIII.

"Curiosity is the thirst of the soul; it inflames and torments us, and makes us taste every thing with joy, however otherwise insipid, by which it may be quenched."

RAMBLER.

"Am I any better, think you, my dear Miss Leslie ?"

"Well, then, my dear Mrs Fife, I rather suspect you are not.”

"Shall I tell you what is to do me good?" "If you please."

"Just another visit from my friend Miss M'Tavish."

"From Miss M'Tavish, Ma'am !"

"From Miss McTavish. She is the only person that understands my complaint, and she generally carries all the ingredients of cure along with her."

"Well, I should be apt to suspect Miss McTavish's skill in pharmacy, my dear Mrs Fife. But, as we are told of the Highland traditionary charms, the virtue sometimes lies in the mere belief."

"Pray, what's the clock?" demanded Mrs Fife.

"It is just five minutes to four."

"Then what in the wide world can be keeping Eliza M'Tavish ?"

"She might have been here by this time."

Might have been here by this time! But stay, hark! wasn't that a noise? Do, my dear, go and inquire who it is. Yet stay, wait; let me listen. Don't you think it is somebody coming up stairs ?"

"I almost think so, my dear Mrs Fife." "If it be her, I should guess her to have got more than one pair of feet."

"Perhaps I had better inquire."

"Don't stir, for mercy's sake!"

Miss Leslie stood on tiptoe, while the door below gave a long shriek.

"Bless me! how that drawing-room door

does squeak. Do you know when the hinges were last oiled?-Well, Anne, whom have we got down stairs, eh?"

Mrs Fife had got Mrs Dudd, Miss Kicklecackle, and Mr Jonathan Hochytoch.

Anne might have added the witch of Endor; for the apparition was equal, to the affrighted senses of Mrs Fife.

"And so, this is the promised bunch of curiosities which, when dead, I am to have stuffed into mummies and placed in M'Farlane's repository! And in exchange for whom I have promised to invite, call upon, and receive that young lady, Miss Edmonstone. Upon my word, you are a pretty contriver, friend Madrake!"

66

My dear Mrs Fife, didn't you talk whole days together about these people to Mr Madrake, and also insisted upon getting acquainted with the very young lady you have just mentioned ?"

66

My dear girl, Mr Crimpfit's marriage, and Colonel Brown's intrigues, had put every thing