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This combustible gentleman fell in love with Catalina
at first sight—and never man had a better excuse;
for she was now in the ripe prime of womanhood,
and lovely as the happiest creations of painting
and poetry. Her eyes, her lips, her cheeks, her
nose, her forehead, and her chin were all cast in the
happy mould of symmetry; and the combination
produced an expression of sensibility, intellect, and
virtue, that struck every one at first sight. Her fair
white neck, her harmonious, graceful shoulders, the
confines of that region on which the eye and the
imagination delight to linger as the chosen spot where
grace and beauty revel as on a bed of snow; the little
finished telltale foot, and the graceful lines that gave
the outline of her touching, full, round figure, all and
each of them bore silent testimony to the perfection
of the hidden glories of the inner temple, sacred to
one alone.

That Colonel Gilfillan should fall headlong in love
at the first sight of such an object, was just as natural,
not to say inevitable, as the explosion of a
barrel of gunpowder on the application of a firebrand.
I will not affirm there was a spark of interest mingled
with his fires, but it may be safely laid down as a
maxim founded in human nature, that the most

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disinterested lover has no very great objection to his
mistress possessing a competent estate. Gilfillan
made downright love to Catalina the tenth time he
saw her; and at the eleventh interview offered her
his hand and fortune, at the same time laying his
sword at her feet, in which he confessed the latter
entirely consisted. He did this however, in a style so
wild and extravagant, and with so odd a mixture of
humour and pathos, jest and earnest, that the young
lady laughed at it as a rhodomontade. She gradually
became accustomed to his extravagance, and
amused with his good-humoured eccentricities. In
the mean time she mixed continually in the winter
gayeties, and became the reigning belle of the season.

Now it was that the spirit moved Sir Thicknesse
Throgmorton to gather himself together and honour
Catalina with his notice. It will ever be found that
the dullest fellows are seen hovering about the most
brilliant objects, just as the bugs and moths, and
other imps of the night, hie them to bask in the
splendours of the lighted candle. Besides this
general propensity, Sir Thicknesse was impelled by
another and more particular incitement. He was
especially envious of Gilfillan, who was perpetually
throwing his accomplishments into the shade, and
whose spirit, brilliancy, and good-nature made the
leaden dullness and stultified pride of the other appear
still more ungracious.

The first demonstration Sir Thicknesse gave of
his devotion to our heroine was one night actually
stooping to pick up her fan, at a party at his puissant
excellency the governor's. Whereupon Madam
Van Borsum, Madam Van Dam, Madam Twentyman,
and twenty other madams, who had marriageable
daughters, were thrown into a trepidation. What

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rendered this act of devotion the more conspicuous,
such was the rigidity of Sir Thicknesse's habits and
costume, that he was obliged to go down on one knee
in order to its performance. The young ladies tittered
behind their fans, and Gilfillan swore it put him
in mind of a wooden god offering incense to a beautiful
young priestess, which sounded somewhat like a bull.
When Sir Thicknesse had performed this successful
feat of gallantry, he strutted away, and passed
the rest of the evening in a corner, in dignified indifference,
justly conceiving he had done enough for
one night.

There was a certain feeling of self-complacency
which was vastly conciliated by having his name connected
with that of the reigning belle of the day, in the
whispers of the young ladies and the tittle-tattle of
their mothers. With all his absurd affectation of
proud indifference, his vanity was highly excited by
the association. Like my Lord Byron, he was always
pretending the most sovereign indifference and contempt
for the world and its opinions, while at the
same time his very soul smarted under its censure
or neglect. Of all the affectations of vanity
that of indifference to the opinions of the world is
the most inconsistent with the feelings and actions
of men, and the most easily detected by its inconsistencies.
Sir Thicknesse followed up his first overt
act of picking up the fan by other demonstrations
still more significant, until it came to pass that Madam
Van Borsum, Madam Van Dam, Madam Twentyman,
and the rest, came to a unanimous decision
that it was all over with their daughters, and that
Catalina would certainly, in good time, become Lady
Throgmorton. Not one of them conceived it possible
she could be so mad as to refuse a baronet, a

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governor's aid-de-camp, and a man actually born in
old England. It is unnecessary to say that these
worthy madams from this time took a decided distaste
to our heroine, and treated her with extraordinary
marks of attention.

Mrs. Aubineau soon, with the quick instinct of a
chaperon having a young lady to establish, perceived
the important conquests Catalina had achieved in so
short a time. She accordingly forthwith fell to balancing
accounts between the two suitors, for as to
honest Sybrandt she looked upon that affair as a
mere country arrangement, made to be broken the
first convenient opportunity. Engagements made
in the country are never considered binding in town,
all the world over. If Catalina, quoth Madam Aubineau,
in her secret cogitations, marries Gilfillan,
she will be a countess in time, but then it's only
an Irish title, and there is no estate to it I know.
If she marries Sir Thicknesse, she will be a lady
at once, wife to an English baronet—and lady is
lady all the world over. Besides he has an estate,
and though it is out at the elbows, a little of Catalina's
fortune will make it whole again. The inevitable
conclusion of Madam Aubineau was to encourage
Sir Thicknesse, and discourage his rival.

But Gilfillan was an Irishman, and, as he affirmed,
he could always tell the difference between the
false and true Milesian, by the latter never being
discouraged. “By my soul,” would he say, “there's
no such word in the old Irish tongue—its an English
importation.” To discourage such a man was
out of the question. If Madam Aubineau looked
coolly towards him, or failed in any of the customary
attentions, he rallied her with such a triumphant
good humour, or received her slights with such

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imperturbable negligence, that the good lady sometimes
laughed herself friends with him, or sat down
in despair at the perfect impotence of her scheme of
discouragement.

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