THE PULSE.

PARIS,

HAIL ye small fweet courtefies of life, for fmooth doye make the road of it! like grace and beauty which beget inclinations to love at first sight: 'tis ye who open this door and let the stranger in.

-Pray, Madame, said I, have the goodness to tell me which way I must turn to go to the Opera Comique:-Moft willingly, Monfieur, faid she, laying afide her work-

I had given a cast with my eye into half a dozen shops as I came along in search of a face not likely to be difordered by fuch an interruption; till at last, this hitting my fancy, I had walked in.

She was working a pair of ruffles as she fat in a low chair on the far fide of the shop facing the door-

-Tres volontiers: most willingly, faid she, laying her work down upon a chair next her, and rifing

!

without leave, and throwing himself upon his knees before my uncle Toby, begged his father's sword, and my uncle Toby's leave along with it, to go and try his fortune under Eugene.-Twice did my uncle Toby forget his wound, and cry out, Le Fever! I will go with thee, and thou shalt fight beside meAnd twice he laid his hand upon his groin, and hung down his head in forrow and difconfolation.

My uncle Toby took down the fword from the crook, where it had hung untouched ever since the Lieutenant's death, and delivered it to the Corporal to brighten up; --and having detained Le Fever a fingle fortnight to equip him, and contract for his passage to Leghorn, he put the sword into his hand,-If thou art brave, Le Fever, faid my uncle Toby, this will not fail thee, but Fortune, faid he, (musing a little) - Fortune may-And if she does,-added my uncle Toby, embracing him, come back again to me, Le Fever, and we will shape thee another course.

The greatest injury could not have oppreffed the heart of Le Fever more than my uncle Toby's paternal kindness; -he parted from my uncle Toby, as the best of fons from the best of fathers both dropped tears

and as my uncle Toby gave him

THE BEAUTIES OF STERNE.

21

his last kiss, he flipped fixty guineas, tied up in an old purfe of his father's, in which was his mother's ring, into his hand, and bid God bless him.

Le Fever got up to the Imperial army just time enough to try what metal his sword was made of, at the defeat of the Turks before Belgrade; but a feries of unmerited mischances had pursued him from that moment, and trod close upon his heels for four years together after: he had withstood these buffetings to the laft, till fickness overtook him at Marseilles, from whence he wrote my uncle Toby word, he had lost his time, his services, his health, and, in short, every thing but his fword;and was waiting for the first ship to return back to him

Le Fever was hourly expected; and was uppermost in my uncle Toby's mind all the time my father was giving him and Yorick a description of what kind of a perfon he would choose for a preceptor to me: but as my uncle Toby thought my father at first somewhat fanciful in the accomplishments he required, he forbore mentioning Le Fever's name,- till the character, by Yorick's interposition, ending unexpectedly, in one, who should be gentle tempered, and generous, and good, it impressed rifing up from the low chair she was fitting in, with fo cheerful a movement and fo cheerful a look, that had I been laying out fifty louis d'ors with her, I fhould have faid-" This woman is grateful."

You must turn, Monfieur, faid the, going with me to the door of the shop, and pointing the way down the ftrect I was to take-you must turn first to your left hand-mais prenez garde-there are two turns; and be fo good as to take the fecondthen go down a little way and you'll fee a church, and when you are paft it, give yourself the trouble to turn directly to the right, and that will lead you to the foot of the pont neuf, which you must crofs -and there any one will do himself the pleasure to shew you

She repeated her inftructions three times over to me with the fame good natured patience the third time as the first; and if tones and manners have a meaning, which certainly they have, unless to hearts which shut them out---the feemed really interested, that I should not lofe myself.

I will not fuppose it was the woman's beauty, notwithstanding she was the handfomeft Griffet, I think, I ever faw, which had much to do with the

fenfe

:

sense I had of her courtesy; only I remember, when I told her how much I was obliged to her, that I looked very full in her eyes, and that I repeated my thanks as often as she had done her instructions.

I had not got ten paces from the door, before I found I had forgot every tittle of what she had faid -fo looking back, and seeing her still standing in the door of the shop as if to look whether I went right or not-I returned back, to ask her whether the first turn was to my right or left-for that I had abfolutely forgot.--Is it possible! faid she, half laughing. -'Tis very possible, replied I, when a man is thinking more of a woman, than of her good advice.

As this was the real truth-she took it, as every woman takes a matter of right, with a flight courtesy.

--Attendez, said she, laying her hand upon my arm to detain me, whilst she called a lad out of the back-shop to get ready a parcel of gloves. am just going to fend him, faid she, with a packet into that quarter, and if you will have the complaisance to step in, it will be ready in a moment, and he shall attend you to the place. --So I walked in with her to the far side of the shop, and taking up