CHAPTER XXV.
A YOUNG GENTLEMAN, JUST FROM WILLIAM AND MARY COLLEGE.
Instead of following Verty, who, like most lovers, is very far from being an amusing personage, let us go back and accompany Mr.Ralph Ashley, on his way to the Bower of Nature, where our young friend Fanny awaits him; and if these scenes and characters also fail to entertain us, we may at least be sure that they are from the book of human nature--a volume whose lightest chapters and most frivolous illustrations are not beneath the attention of the wisest.

If this were not true, the present chronicler would never be guilty of the folly of expending his time and ink upon such details as go to make up this true history; it would be lost labor, were not the flower and the blade of grass, the very thistle down upon the breeze, each and all, as wonderful as the grand forests of the splendid tropics.

What character or human deed is too small or trivial for study?
Never did a great writer utter truer philosophy than when he said: "Say not 'a small event!' Why 'small ?' Costs it more pains than this, ye call A 'great event,' shall come to pass, Than that?
Untwine me from the mass Of deeds which make up life, one deed Power shall fall short in, or exceed!" And now after this philosophical dissertation upon human life and actions, we may proceed to narrate the visit of Mr.Ralph Ashley, graduate of Williamsburg, and cousin of Miss Fanny, to the Bower of Nature, and its inmates.
Fanny was at the door when he dismounted, and awaited the young gentleman with some blushes, and a large amount of laughter.
This laughter was probably directed toward the somewhat dandified costume of the young gentleman, and he was not long left in the dark upon this point.
"How d'ye do, my dearest Fanny," said Mr.Ralph Ashley, hastening forward, and holding out his arms; "let us embrace!" "Humph!" said Fanny; "indeed you shan't!" "Shan't what--kiss you ?" "Yes, sir: you shall do nothing of the sort!" "Wrong!--here goes!" And before Miss Fanny could make her retreat, Ralph Ashley, Esq., caught that young lady in his arms, and impressed a salute upon her lips, so remarkably enthusiastic, that it resembled the discharge of a pistol.

Perhaps we are wrong in saying that it was imprinted on his cousin's lips, inasmuch as Miss Fanny, though incapacitated from releasing herself, could still turn her head, and she always maintained that nothing but her cheek suffered.

On this point we cannot be sure, and therefore leave the question undecided.
Of one fact, however, there can be no doubt--namely, that Mr.Ralph Ashley received, almost immediately, a vigorous salute of another description upon the cheek, from Miss Fanny's open hand--a salute which caused his face to assume the most girlish bloom, and his eyes to suddenly fill with tears.
"By Jove! you've got an arm!" said the cavalier, admiringly.