Nature had been very profuse in bestowing her favors upon Mr. Frank Gadsby. In the first place she had given him a very elegant person, tall and of manly proportions; secondly, a pair of large, dark-hazel eyes, which could beam with tenderness or become fixed in the “fine frenzy” of despair, as best suited the pleasure of their owner. Above them she had placed a broad, white forehead, and adorned it with waving hair, of a dark, glossy brown. Next, a splendid set of teeth attested her skill and favor; and, to complete the tout ensemble, whiskers and moustache were unsurpassable.

“Well,” said Fortune, rather ruffled, “if Nature has been so prodigal, he shall have none of my assistance—not he! Let him make his way through the world by his good looks, if he can. I will seek out some ordinary looking fellow, whom nature has neglected, and with my golden smiles atone for the want of those attractions which soonest win the favor of the fair.”

And thus, under the ban of Fortune, Frank Gadsby left college.

He professed to study the law as a means of winning the favor of the goddess, and had a small backroom, up three flights of stairs, furnished with a table and two chairs, on which table several voluminous law-books very quietly reposed, being seldom forced to open their oracular jaws to give forth their sage opinions. This was his study. But the person who should expect to find him there, I am sorry to say, would have a fruitless visit, and drag up those steep stairs for nothing. He would be much more likely to meet him promenading Chestnut street, gallanting some beautiful young girl up and down its thronged pavÉ—or at the Art Union, with an eye upon the living beauties there congregated, not upon the pictures which adorn its walls.

And yet I would not wish to convey an erroneous opinion, in thus hinting at the usual whereabouts of Mr. Gadsby. If he did not study, it was not for the want of talents or aptness; for he possessed a fine mind, and only needed some impetus to call forth those brilliant traits which were concealed beneath an exterior so vain and trifling—for vain he certainly was, and trifling I think I can prove beyond dispute. The fact is, being a general favorite with the ladies, he was inclined to push his advantage a little too far; or, in other words, Frank Gadsby was a coquet—a male coquet, of the first magnitude—insinuating, plausible, soft-voiced, and, in the words of Spencer,

But although, like the fickle zephyr, he wooed with light dalliance every fair flower of beauty which came across his path, he yet managed to retain his heart safe in his own lordly bosom, and Frank Gadsby, the charmer, alone possessed that love sworn to so many.

Yet, as one cannot very well live without money, especially in the atmosphere which surrounded my hero, and as the law put little money in his purse, and the small annuity left him by some deceased relative almost as little, Mr. Gadsby resolved to make a rich match one of these days; no hurry—there was time enough—he had but to pick and choose—any lady would be proud to become Mrs. Frank Gadsby—and until stern necessity forced it upon him, he would wear no conjugal yoke! And, with this self-laudatory decision, he continued his flirtations.

A conversation which passed between Mr. Gadsby and his friend Clarence Walton, will serve better than any thing I can vouch to substantiate the charge of trifling which I have preferred against him.

This same charge Walton had been reiterating, but to which, with perfect nonchalance, Gadsby answered:

“A trifler—a coquet! Come, that is too bad, Walton! To be sure, I pay the ladies attentions, such as they all expect to receive from the gentlemen. I give flowers to one, I sit at the feet of a second, go off in raptures at the music of a third, press the fair hand of a fourth, waltz with a fifth, and play the gallant to all—but it is only to please them I do it; and then, I say, Walton, if they will fall in love with me, egad, how can I help it!” and, saying this, our coxcomb looked in the glass, as much as to say, “poor things, they surely cannot help it!”

“There was Caroline D——, for instance,” replied his friend; “why, as well as I know your roving propensities, I was induced to think you serious there!”

“What, Cara D.! I smitten! O, no! I said some very tender things to her, to be sure, and visited her every day for a month—wrote her notes, and presented her daily with some choice bouquet; but I was honorable; as soon as I saw she was beginning to like me too well, why, I retreated. Did, upon my honor! Here is her last note—read it Walton!” taking one from a private drawer, evidently crowded with a multitudinous collection of faded bouquets, knots of ribbon, gloves, fans, billet-doux, and silken ringlets of black, brown and golden hair.

“No; excuse me, Frank, from perusing your love notes,” said Walton! “but there was also Emma Gay.”

“Ah, poor Emma! She was a bewitching little creature!” was the answer. “I wrote some verses to her beautiful eyes, and gazed into them so tenderly that they folded themselves in their drooping lids to hide from me. She gave me a lock of her soft, brown hair—I have it somewhere; but, faith, I have so many such tokens that it is difficult to find the right one. O, here it is!”

“And Cornelia Hyde!”

“She was a splendid girl! Sang like an angel, waltzed like a sylph! Yes, I flirted with her half a season. I believe she did get a little too fond of me—sorry for it; upon my soul I meant nothing!”

“But you can hardly say your attentions to Miss Reed meant nothing,” said Walton, continuing the category.

“Why, what could I do?” answered Gadsby. “Confound it, if she did not send for me every third night to sing duets with her, and every other morning to pass judgment upon her paintings. I could not be otherwise than civil.”

“Then, there was Julia Hentz, and her friend, Hatty Harwood.”

“O, spare me, Walton! Julia was a sentimental beauty, doating upon the moon, and stars, and charity children! On my soul, it is no unpleasant thing to stroll in the beautiful moonlight with a pretty, romantic girl leaning upon your arm, and to gaze down into her languishing eyes as they turn their brilliant orbs to the less brilliant stars. I tell you what, it is a taking way, and came pretty near taking me; for I was nearer popping the question to the sentimental, moon-struck, star-gazing Julia, than I love to think of now; see what I drew from her fair hand on our last moonlight ramble,” (showing a delicate glove.) “As for her friend Harriet, although not so handsome as Julia, she is a shrewd, sensible girl—told me, with all the sang-froid imaginable, that I was flirting a little too strongly—that she could not think of having me dangling after her, for two reasons—conclusive ones. First was, she did not like me; and, secondly, my professions were all feigned, for she knew me to be the greatest coquet extant—a character which, she added, with provoking coolness, she had no respect for!”

“Good! A sensible girl, Frank!” said Walton, laughing.

“Hang me if I did not begin to like her all the better after that,” continued Gadsby, “and had a great mind to pursue the game in earnest; but I found it would not pay the exertion. She is as poor as myself.”

“What can you say of the sisters, Louise and Katrine Leslie, whom you followed as their shadow for more than six weeks?” pursued the indefatigable Walton.

“The brunette and the blonde,” answered Gadsby. “Both charming girls. Louise, with those large, tender, black eyes—why, she melted one’s heart as though but a lump of wax; but, then, the roguish glances of Katrine’s sparkling gray ones! Well, well; a sensible fellow might be very happy with either. Fact is, they were jealous of each other—ha, ha, ha. If I wrote poetry to Louise, then Katrine pouted, and her little white dimpled shoulder turned very coldly upon me. So, I gave flowers to Katrine and pressed her dimpled hand; then the bewitching Louise cast her reproachful eyes upon me, and a sigh came floating to me on her rose-scented breath, at which I placed myself at her feet, and read the Sorrows of Evangeline in Search of her Lover, and begged for the ringlet on which a tear had fallen; then Katrine—but no matter; they were both very fond, poor things!”

“In the words of the song, I suppose you might have sung,

exclaimed Walton.

“Precisely. Have you finished your catechism?”

“I have; although many other names, whose fair owners you have trifled with, are in my mind,” said Walton. “You must excuse my frankness, Gadsby, when I tell you that your conduct is unworthy a man of honor or principle. There is not one of the ladies of whom we have spoken, but has had reason to think herself the object of your particular interest and pursuit; and if, as you flatter yourself, they have seemed partial to your attentions, that partiality has been awakened by those winning words and manners which none better than yourself know how to assume. Shame on the man, I say, who can thus insinuate himself into the affections of a young, unsuspecting girl, merely to flatter his own egregious vanity or his self-love! Coquetry, idle as it is, is more properly the province of woman. Nature has given them sprightliness, grace and beauty, which, in their hands, like the masterly fan in the days of the Spectator, they are expected to use as weapons against us; but for a man to assume the coquet, renders him contemptible. If there is any thing which can add to its meanness, it is boasting of his conquests—playing the braggart to his own vanity. Woman’s affections are too sacred to be thus trifled with, nor should her purity be insulted by the boasts of a—caricature, not a man! Burn all these idle toys, Gadsby—trophies of unworthy victories—turn to more noble pursuits, nor longer waste the talents which God has given you, nor the time which can never be regained.”

“As fine a lecture as I ever listened to,” quoth Gadsby, feigning a laugh. “When do you take orders, most reverend Clarence? Why, you deserve to be elected moralist of the age—a reformer in the courts of Cupid. However, I will give you the credit of honesty, and more—for I confess you have given me some pretty sharp home-thrusts, which I will not pretend to parry; but you take things too seriously, upon my soul you do. One of these days you shall behold me a sober, married man, in a flannel night-cap; but until then, Walton,

“vive l’amour!”

——