I am fure you must have one of the best pulfes of any woman in the world-Feel it, faid fhe, holding out her arm. So laying down my hat, I took hold of her fingers in one hand, and applied the two fore-fingers of my other to the artery—

-Would to Heaven! my dear Eugenius, thou hadft passed by, and beheld me fitting in my black coat, and in my lack-a-day-fical manner, counting the throbs of it, one by one, with as much true devotion as if I had been watching the critical ebb or flow of her fever-How wouldft thou have laugh'd and moralized upon my new profeffion! - and thou shouldft have laugh'd and moralized onTruft me, my dear Eugenius, I should have faid, "there are worse occupations "in this world than feeling a woman's "pulfe."-But a Griffet's! thou wouldst have faid-and in an open shop! Yorick

So much the better: for when my views are direct, Eugenius, I care not if all the world faw me feel it.

THE HUSBAND.

PARIS.

I HAD counted twenty pulsations, and was going on faft towards the fortieth, when her husband coming unexpectedly from a back parlour into the shop, put me a little out in my reckoning.-'Twas nobody but her husband, she said - so I began a fresh score- Monfieur is so good, quoth fhe as he pafs'd by us, as to give himself the trouble of feeling my pulfeThe hufband took off his hat, and making me a bow, faid, I did him too much ho-and having faid that, he put on

nour

his hat and walk'd out.

Good God! faid I to myself, as he went out-and can this man be the husband of: this woman?

Let it not torment the few, who know what must have been the grounds of this exclamation, if I explain it to those who do not.

In London, a fhopkeeper and shopkeeper's wife seem to be one bone and one

flesh in the feveral endowments of mind and body, sometimes the one, fometimes the other has it, fo as in general to be upon a par, and to tally with each other as nearly as a man and wife need to do.

In Paris, there are scarce two orders of beings more different: for the legislative and executive powers of the shop not refting in the husband, he feldom comes there -in fome dark and dismal room behind, he fits commerceless in his thrum nightcap, the fame rough son of Nature that Nature left him.

The genius of a people where nothing but the monarchy is salique, having ceded this department, with fundry others, totally to the women by a continual higgling with customers of all ranks and fizes, from morning to night, like fo many rough pebbles fhook long together in a bag, by amicable collifions they have worn down their afperities and fharp angles, and not only become round and smooth, but will receive, fome of them, a polish like a brilliant-Monfieur le Mari is little better than the ftone under your foot

Surely-furely, man! it is not good

L

for thee to fit alone-thou waft made for focial intercourfe and gentle greetings, and this improvement of our natures from it, I appeal to, evidence.

as my

And how does it beat, Monfieur? said fhe. With all the benignity, said I, looking quietly in her eyes, that I expected She was going to say something civil in return - but the lad came into the shop with the gloves-A propos, said I, I want a couple of pairs myself.

THE GLOVES.

PARIS.

THE beautiful Griffet rose up when I faid this, and going behind the counter, reach'd down a parcel, and untied it: I advanced to the fide over against her; they were all too large. The beautiful Grisset measured them one by one across my hand - It would not alter the dimenfions- She begg'd I would try a single pair, which feemed to be the leaft. She held it open

-my hand flipp'd into it at once-It will

not do, faid I, shaking my head a littleNo, faid fhe, doing the same thing.

There are certain combined looks of fimple fubtlety-where whim, and sense, and seriousness, and nonsense, are fo blended, that all the languages of Babel set loofe together, could not express themthey are communicated and caught so inftantaneously, that you can scarce say which party is the infecter. I leave it to your' men of words to fwell pages about it-it is enough in the present to say again, the gloves would not do; so, folding our hands within our arms, we both loll'd upon the counter – it was narrow, and there was juft room for the parcel to lay between us.

The beautiful Griffet look'd fometimes at the gloves, then fide-ways to the window, then at the gloves-and then at me. I was not disposed to break filence—I follow'd her example: fo I look'd at the gloves, then to the window, then at the gloves, and then at her-and so on alternately.

I found I loft confiderably in every attack-she had a quick black eye, and shot