Six "I will! I will!" replied Henry, wiping the heavy drops of cold perspiration from his brow. 'Oh, this is most damnable. teen years of love, to be thus rewarded. Cockatrice, I disown you; I disavow my child-what proof is there 'tis mine?" A man here entered, and closed the doo after him. He was a foreigner, plainly but decently clad; his countenance was handsome, though a trifle careworn; and a heavy moustache gave a salient outline to features sufficiently marked of themselves. Bowing profoundly to his fair companion, who, glancing uneasily up at the piazza, hurried him away: "My husband, monsieur le comte," said she, and the remaining part of the sentence was lost, as they passed down the g walk. σε Enough," said Henry, trembling in every limb, "nough, enough! Habakkuk, this is horrible, very horrible: but I will be calm, very calm. Wait you here, Habakkuk; move not, stir not, but tell me what passes;" and giving his friend no time to reply, he hurried into the House, muttering, “A foreigner too! under my very nose! she that knows how I hate them, how I detest their smooth knavery. A Pole, too-the nation of rascals! My God! My God!" Habakkuk leaned back on the seat and shut his eyes. He was pale, very pale; it was clear that his excitement was scarcely less than that of his friend. He thrust his hands into his pockets, took them out again, folded his arms, and rising, leaned over the balustrade, just as a voice over head in richly musical tones sang out: "The last rose of summer is faded and gone.' Ah me! why do I feel so very sad this evening?" 66 66 They are coming up the walk, Henry," said the other in a whisper, now be a man, and having seen what you have seen, prepare to act like one. Retire into the house, and when you are a little cooler, we will talk over what is to be done." "To be done! why, Habakkuk, I will turn them out of doors, mother and daughterthe dam and her offspring, cut them off from every farthing, and leave my property to my nephew." Habakkuk turned away his head, literally dumb-founded. "His nephew," muttered he; " that never struck me before." And then he added, "Hush, man, they come." As he spoke, the lady and the Polish count came upon the lawn; the stranger bowed several times, then raising the young wife's hand to his lips, kissed it respectfully, and turned to go. The report of two pistols were heard simultaneously. CHAPTER IV. and still more ghastly in his pallor than be- IN WHICH TWO PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS ARE fore. 66 They have not passed," replied that personage, somewhat alarmed at the sight of the pistols; "but what are you about to do? are you mad?" 66 DESCRIBED. The hero of our tale, left to himself, thrust his hands deeply into the pockets of his Taglioni, shook his head, gazed by the light of a gas-lamp at his boots, his pants, and the No, not mad, but wise, very wise- I whole material of his outer man, an exami nation which appeared to produce no very elegance which, once attained, is never lost, favourable result. "An adventure in London," cried Frederick, "but would to God these habiliments were more juvenile, I should carry my head a trifle higher." At this moment, the man in the cloak rounded the corner, and came face to face with Wilson, but no sooner did he perceive our hero, than muttering something quite unintelligible, he hurried away. The young man began to feel somewhat uneasy, he could not tell why, but an undefined sentiment of dread seemed to take possession of him, and he watched the retreating figure until it was lost in the distance, with a certain anxiety, which afterwards appeared even more inexplicable. "The fellow has certainly something to do with the girl; that is a matter as plain as the palm of my hand or the rule of three, but what? Aye, 'there is the rub,' as my friend Walters says." The fair companion of our hero now returned, and invited her defender to enter, as her mamma was at home, and would be happy to see him, a statement which Wilson regarded as a mere politesse, of which, however, he was very ready to avail himself. The unfortunate are too apt to misjudge the motives of those with whom they come in contact. But little used to active sympathy, and less to really disinterested kindness, they almost always regard an act, which perhaps originated in true benevolence, and a keen sense of your misfortunes, as an act of mere pity-and none forgive those who lower them by pity, when the sensitive soul seeks for feelings more in unison with its own real wants. Wilson was fully satisfied that his charmer's mamma thought him a bore, but then she was his charmer's mamma, and he was resolved not to lose so excellent an opportunity of obtaining a footing in the family. The threshold passed, Mr. Frederick became nervous, for the passage was elegantly fitted up, the stairs leading to the upper apartments were heavily carpetted, and the youth felt somewhat uneasy beneath the light of a swinging lamp, when, turning toward the descending flight, his guide marvellously relieved his mind by leading him towards the kitchen, and, in another moment, introduced him to her mother as Mrs. Cartwright. That lady was between thirty and forty years of age, and though plainly dressed, had still about her an air of high-breeding and save in moral degradation. Very pale, and slightly inclined to embonpoint, her black and glossy hair was parted over a brow of singular whiteness. Her face was more than handsome, it was beautiful, but there was a dreamy apathy of expression, a settled, dogged, persevering melancholy in her eyes, an impossibility of smiling in her glance, which filled the mind with painful thoughts. She was not long for this world, she was, as it has been happily expressed, "going"; neither fully awake to life, nor actually near death, she hovered between the two. Mrs. Cartwright received the young man with cordiality, thanking him very earnestly for the service rendered to her dear Mary, "for indeed," said she, "young men in London are too apt rather to insult an unprotected female, than to aid in preserving her from injury." "My dear madam, no thanks, I beg," said Wilson, allowing Mary to take his hat, hand him a chair, and perform sundry offices which, but for his confusion, he would have himself done. "I am too proud, too happy, that I have been able in the slightest degree to make myself useful. I am afraid I generally do more harm than good, and this will atone, perhaps, for some indiscretion as slight as the service." Wilson, who was rarely in the society of ladies of any degree, was astonished at the length of his own speech. 66 Those who own their faults, Mr. Wilson," said the mother, "go half-way to mend them. The worst are those who do evil with good upon their lips; such men are demons upon earth." Mrs. Cartwright spoke with deep feeling, and was silent for a moment, giving our hero leisure to remark that he was in a neatly furnished front kitchen, evidently serving the purpose of both sitting and sleeping apartment to his new friends. A blazing fire, various little cheap luxuries, a couple of mould candles, by which the mother had been sewing, were indications that extreme poverty was not the lot of the two females, but the situation of their apartment sufficiently denoted that they occupied no very elevated sphere in society. The suggestions of his own vanity, and something in the manners of both mother and daughter, satisfied Wilson that they had descended from a loftier position. It required no great exertion of eloquence to induce our hero to join his new friends in a meal, half tea half supper, during the course of which he learned that Mary when he met her was returning from a day's work in the house of a lady, who gave her regular employment with the needle, that her hour for leaving was usually six, and that Mrs. Cartwright, owing to weakness in her feet, was obliged on all occasions to allow her to return alone. All this was not learnt in a moment, but, during the progress of a meal, which to Wilson was like the manna in the wilderness to the Jews. Eating is certainly the least intellectual of human enjoyments, and yet, from many causes, it is one of the most agreeable. A generous and ample diet is certainly productive of benefit even to the mind, which while the body is pinched and starved, must acquire a little of the same character from constant association. Unfortunately, though mind and body be so different, the one all material, and the other all spirituality, yet are they so intimately connected that they cannot at will dissolve partnership; when the corporeal nature of man suffereth and yearneth after the flesh-pots of Egypt, the mind cannot take a flight and avoid the potent influence of the gastric juices. No! it must remain and endure the inconveniences of the union. There is but one divorce between the body of the soul, a divorce never sued for but by the coward, who can no longer brace his nerves to face the ills, which every being of woman born is heir to. On the other hand, the mind is keenly alive to the enjoyment of a good dinner. Few men are surly after hearty and wholesome refection. It is your over-feeders, your gourmands, who, post prandici, become testy and out of sorts. They have over-done the thing. With no bridle on the bit of appetite, they ride their stomachs to the goal of gout and indigestion, and generally reach it. The plate is one which can be won at a canter. It is as easy as romancing, as sure as a British bank-note. But keep a tight rein, use the gifts of Providence in moderation, and when a man has dined under these influences he certainly is rarely disagreeable. Now, Wilson had not sat down to so regular and wholesome a meal for many a long day. His ménage was a bachelor one, and consequently his meals were at any time and composed of anything. On the present occasion, after a fast of some duration, he really enjoyed his tea. His pallor fled, the dim eyes regained their lustre, his very cheeks seemed puffed out; his tongue had not been so leisome for many a day, and his good humour and happy state of feeling was such, that, had he not been restrained by notions of propriety, and by the promptings of his better angel, he could, on the spot, have embraced both mother and daughter; in both instances he would have shown his taste. The daughter was eighteen, a sweet and lovely child; the mother, a beautiful woman of a little more than twice that age. The better to comprehend the feelings which roused so much happiness and enjoyment within our hero's bosom, it may here be remarked that he was an orphan, without one friend or known relative in the world to depend on, or from whom to receive advice or assistance in any emergency. By the interest of a guardian, since dead, he had been attached, as occasional reporter, to the corps of a weekly journal. On this precarious means, and paragraphs and police reports furnished to the daily papers, Wilson's sole subsistence depended. Alone, friendless, it was but natural that economy and provision were the last virtues practised by the young man, who, therefore, despite some success in his peculiar walk, was scarcely ever any other than shabby and penniless. Almost his sole experience, therefore, of the female sex was in the landlady line, about the last division of the species to give, an irregular single man lodger a favourable opinion of the race. Hence had arisen in his mind a kind of natural connection between ladies and latch-keys, dames and dunning, women and a week's warning, which was far from conducing to a very exalted opinion of the fair moiety of the universe. "Mr. Wilson, if I don't see that little account settled afore Saturday, I am werry sorry, but I have a large family a looking to me, and you must go." "Mr. Wilson, you promised me them five shillings, but I never seed them as yet." "I'm blessed Mr. Wilsun if I stands this here nonsense any longer. Here have you been a promising, and a promising, and a promising, and I never sees nuffin but promises. It don't stand to reason, Mr. Wilson, that I'm a-going to furnish my apartments (a garret with a truckle-bed) and pay king's taxes, water-rates, gas-companies, to say nuffin of my rent, which is due only to-day, for a parcel of good-for-nuffin lodgers, what arn't got no more feeling in their bosoms, that never a tax-gatherer of 'em all. No, Mr. Wilson, it don't stand to reason, and you, if you can't pay rent, I'd advise you, as a friend, not to take lodgings." It has been said that we must eat a peck of dirt in our lives, but woe be to the defaulter of rent; he must eat it at one meal. The legal claim of the proprietor of a house, the timid nature of a debtor, who feels himself within the clutches of the law, emboldens the one to shower taunt and sarcasm and abuse on the unfortunate back of the owing wight. No one understood the whole physiology of debt better than Wilson, and, as we have above remarked, his ideas of the sex being confined almost wholly to landladies he was quite beside himself at finding ladies so delightful as his new friends proved to be. 'But, mamma," said Mary, after supper had been some time concluded, and the three new friends had been in conversation during a short period, "I cannot keep the secret any longer; I must tell you; and this gentleman will excuse my entering on family details." "Don't pay any attention to me," said young Wilson, with a smile. "I beg you will speak, as if I were nobody." Speak, child, what is it?" exclaimed Mrs. Cartwright: "it is something good, I am sure, by the eagerness you show to tell it." "Well, you must know then, mamma," continued the fair and eager Mary, "that Mrs. Jameson has added two shillings per week to my salary, in consequence of my great improvement, as she is pleased to call it." "It is little, child, but thankful have we to be for what we have. Though, Mr. Wilson, the day was when we seldom thought much of ten pounds more or less in our week's expenditure." "I thought so, Mrs. Cartwright,” replied our hero, "indeed I was quite sure of it;" he would gladly have added some question in relation to the cause of the change, but his joint timidity and good sense, governing his impulses, he forbore. Mary smiled, however, at his observation, but neither she nor her mother attempted any explanation, and shortly afterwards the young man took his leave, having first obtained permission to renew his visit. CHAPTER V NIGHT HAUNTS. The door of the mansion, which yet, however, contained the better part of our hero, once closed against him, he turned round, and taking good cognisance of the premises, and the locality in which they were situated, was about to turn his steps in the direction of home, with his pockets as empty as ever, but with his heart light and cheerful, when a heavy hand laid upon his shoulder startled him from his pleasant reverie. Wilson turned round and confronted the man in the cloak. "Very happy to make your acquaintance, sir," said the stranger, coolly; "I have to thank you for your gallantry in defending my friend, Miss Cartwright. Excellent worthy people the Cartwrights?" "Sir," replied Frederick Wilson, scarcely recovered from his surprise, and bowing with a very bad grace, "I really did not think—” "My dear sir," continued the stranger, taking our hero's unresisting hand, “no ceremony between us, I beg. I was accidentally passing, and I saw at once, by your action, that you were a lad of spirit. I honour you for it. Shall we drink a bottle to the health of the lady, and to our better acquaintance." Wilson began to think that refection of the inner man was plentiful that particular evening, and, though he had just taken tea, did not consider it at all wise to decline the invitation, the more especially, as he hoped, while imbibing, not the but something equally exhilirating, to learn something in connection with his new friends. "Really, sir, your offer is so very polite," our hero replied, "that I cannot think of refusing—at the same time—” "No apology-where shall we adjourn, Mr. Wilson," observed the apothecary, for such he explained himself to be, "I do not generally frequent or patronise taverns, and in my own back-room, why, you know, Mr. Wilson, one is not at one's ease. I have two assistants-" "Exactly," continued Wilson, with a wink, relapsing into his usual manner, which the presence of the ladies had previously controlled, "you don't wish to set a bad example to the juveniles. Bnt I have it; a friend of mine, that is to say, a person I know something of, will be very happy to accom modate us. I would take you to my own lodgings, but really, Mr. Smith, you know we bachelors are so careless about appearances-" "I know exactly-just so; we live in any place we first happen upon; I am a bachelor myself, and can comprehend these little eccentricities." "But, as I said, sir," added Wilson, who was now locked arm in arm with his new acquaintance, "I have a place of resort, a kind of house of call, not a friend's, exactly, but still a mansion, kept by a very accommodating kind of individual, whither we can repair." Mr. H. Smith smiled, a kind of a queer smile, too, it was-half of amusement, half of satisfaction; he seemed, indeed, singularly pleased with his acquisition, and looked as if he could really lend him a good round sum, on excellent security. In the somewhat free interchange of thought, especially on the part of Frederick Wilson, whose spirits were far above their usual ratio, the short time required to reach the locality designated, but not specified by our hero, passed away; and in the midst of a dissertation on the merits of the last ballet, their critical observations were suddenly brought to a close, by Wilson's pausing, in a very seedy street, before a dismal, dark-looking tobacconist's. 66 Why, where are we ?" said H. Smith, looking around him with much astonishment, and something of a suspicious glance. "Do not ask questions, my dear sir," replied Wilson, who was evidently getting up a devil-may-care look and manner ere they entered the shop; "St. Giles is the general term, but the street, we never mention it; suffice it, that a certain Duke, who wasn't Charles the Second's Queen's son, may have had some hand in nomenclature." Mr. Smith smiled, and motioning Wilson to lead the way, they entered. แ "Well, Jerry, anybody inside?" Well, your honour," exclaimed the party addressed, without replying to the latter question. The person whom Wilson called by the name of Jerry, was a little shrivelled man, of about five-and-fifty, who stood behind the counter serving half an ounce of tobacco to a mechanic. (To be continued.) THE NEW YEAR'S OMEN. "We will never meet again," said the veteran; "this is new year's night, and there are thirteen in the room."- Count De Therenez's Recollections of La Grande Armée. Comrades, the wine our vineyards poured But the gathered number fate hath sealed, I know not if the parting powers I mark not whom these festal hours The young are here, whose souls have part The tireless and the strong of heart, And there are those, like trees, that stand Who yet may see the fearless hand But on my soul what shadows fall, The faces round, we love them yet; We deem not that such lords as these If it must hold such wrecks. Adieu, Yet oh, the bright hours we have pass'd What radient memories will it cast, To wake, in spite of change and strife, But from the bright wine of our land, The last hour of so blythe a hand And drink to many a brave heart's dream, |