Amongst the most devoted of her admirers was Julian Fitzorphandale. Seraphina was not insensible to the worth of Julian Fitzorphandale; and when she received from him a letter, asking permission to visit her, she felt some difficulty in replying to his ?[3]; for, at this very critical .[4], an unamiable young man, named Augustus St. Tomkins, who possessed considerable £. s. d. had become a suitor for her
. She loved Fitzorphandale +[5] St. Tomkins, but the former was ∪ of money; and Seraphina, though sensitive to an extreme, was fully aware that a competency was a very comfortable “appendix.”
She seized her pen, but found that her mind was all 6’s and 7’s. She spelt Fitzorphandale, P-h-i-t-z; and though she commenced ¶[6] after ¶, she never could come to a “finis.” She upbraided her unlucky ∗ ∗, either for making Fitzorphandale so poor, or St. Tomkins so ugly, which he really was. In this dilemma we must leave her at present.
Although Augustus St. Tomkins was a
[7], he did not possess the universal benevolence which that ancient order inculcates; but revolving in his mind the probable reasons for Seraphina’s hesitation, he came to this conclusion: she either loved him −[8] somebody else, or she did not love him at all. This conviction only ×[9] his worst feelings, and he resolved that no ℈℈[10] of conscience should stand between him and his desires.
On the following day, Fitzorphandale had invited Seraphina to a pic-nic party. He had opened the &[11] placed some boiled beef and ^^[12] on the verdant grass, when Seraphina exclaimed, in the mildest ``´´[13], “I like it well done, Fitzorphandale!”
As Julian proceeded to supply his beloved one with a §[14] of the provender, St. Tomkins stood before them with a †[15] in his