MODERN CONSTANCY. 87 



Fanny would fain have kept her own counsel, but she knew 

 not how to return the jewel which the quondam Count had 

 bestowed upon her. So she confided in cousin Frank, and told 

 him the whole story. He was in a towering passion, and 

 swore like an " old salt," at her folly, but ended by forgiving 

 her, and helping her out of her difficulty. He managed the 

 affair so well, that no one ever knew how long the princess's 

 ring had lain upon the bosom of the village maiden, or how 

 deeply she had risked her happiness in the acquisition of the 

 jewel. 



This adventure cured Fanny of her romance and of her 

 inconstancy. She has now been for some years the plump, 

 rosy, happy wife of cousin Frank. Some persons might have 

 been fastidious about the waste of her fresh feelings in all these 

 fanciful attachments, but Frank had no such ideas. Instead of 

 flinging away a rose because others had inhaled its perfume, he 

 determined to pluck it and hide it within his own bosom, so 

 that in future it should bloom only for him. Fanny had been 

 a foolish fantastic girl, and I doubt whether she ever became a 

 very wise and prudent woman, but she became a less fickle one. 

 To use Frank's own words : 



" When she was once moored, and especially when there were 

 two or three little kedge-anchors out to hold her, she was as 

 steady as a seventy-four." 



