"In fact, Solomon Cash, it's quite preposterous my expecting ever to get to Ripley to-night with you, so I'll thank you, sir, to let me get down, and go on without me; only mind you, if you do get there to-night, without a broken neck, it's what, from your present audacious conduct, you have no right to expect."

"Now, Miss Bab!" cried Solomon, blushing all over at the stinging tone in which this insult was uttered, "if you mean to say you intend to get down, and leave me and Goliah to go to Ripley all alone, I must tell you it's not to be thought of for one moment. Out of this gig you don't stir until we get to our journey's end, and that's plain speaking, Miss Bab, and no mistake."

"And I tell you I will get down, Solomon Cash!" cried Barbara, making an ineffectual attempt to snatch the reins out of Solomon's hands, which of course had the effect of making Goliah rear bolt upright on his haunches, and then plunge forward in splendid style, whereupon Solomon, with a triumphant scream, bade Barbara "keep hard hold, for the beast was off for certain, now," which he certainly was in a most alarming degree.

First a snort, and a plunge, and a flourish of his long tail, which made the gig shake to such an extent that every bone in their bodies ached again; then another snort, as, like a flash of lightning, they were carried past trees, and gates, and cottages, and mills, darting up hills, and plunging down banks, that almost brought the gig over upon him, whilst Solomon groaned, and Barbara screamed, in mingled pain and terror, for it was really becoming fearful now, and both wished themselves well out of it.

To their great relief Ripley Grange appeared in sight at length, and the vixenish Goliah became, as if by magic, as tractable as a lamb, in an instant, and with a heartfelt prayer, Solomon threw the reins to a groom, and, dismounting from his perch, assisted the still terrified Barbara to alight. The latter had not yet recovered her breath, else she would have favoured him with another explosion as they entered the house, which was a perfect blaze of light, and already apparently crammed with guests.

"Now, Solomon," said Barbara, in whose manner the nervousness of her novel situation mingled most oddly with her natural acerbity of temper, as they ascended the stairs, "Remember, when you see Mr. Hutton and Mr. Pestlepolge, you make a very elegant bow, and after you have handed me down from tea, you must ask me to dance, you must not forget that, Solomon, you know," added Barbara, with maidenly coyness, darting a loving glance at her bewildered companion.

"Sartinly not, Mis Bab," whispered Solomon, ogling his ancient flame in a manner that he fancied was vastly killing; "Oh my! you ever see such a scene?" as the ball-room, in all its splendour, burst upon his enraptured gaze: "Whew! but Marmaduke is doing it in style, and no mistake."

did

"Hush, Solomon," said Barbara, in her most dictatorial voice, pinching his arm as she spoke, for she was inwardly scandalized at the gauchery of Solomon's loud-spoken amazement; "see all and say nothing, you fool," and having delivered herself of this admonition, she led, rather than was led by, the little pedagogue, right up the centre of the room, entirely oblivious to the many

"Becks, and bows, and wreathed smiles,"

and we regret to add, that a keen regard to truth compels us to chronicle not a few titters, amongst the rest, of numerous friends and acquaintances, not one of whom would she notice until Marmaduke Hutton and his friends were saluted after the most approved fashion.

There was an imposing tableau at the upper end of the room, formed by Marmaduke and his own peculiar satellites, more than sufficient, of itself, to strike terror into a thousand Solomon Cashes, could so many duplicates of that luckless wight have been summoned to behold it. There was Marmaduke in the centre, in a peach-coloured coat, and tawny velvet waistcoat, all bedecked with lace, and breeches to match, looking like a vitalised phantom, sneering a welcome to his guests, supported by the courtly Pestlepolge, whose usually dark countenance mantled with smiles, and who made a great form of being introduced to every one of the guests as they approached, whilst a stream of the sweetest adulation poured from his lips, which in one moment entirely engulphed the hapless Solomon to such an extent that he kept bowing and wriggling, and scraping, and muttering his raptures, long after Barbara had dropped her curtsey and was fain to retire.

"Glad to see you, Miss Burton," squeaked Marmaduke: "how d'ye do, Cash? Pestlepolge, let me introduce our very enlightened schoolmaster, Mr. Solomon Cash. Capital hand at bireh is Solomon."

"Most happy to make the acquaintance of Mr. Pestlepolge,' jerked out Solomon, looking up with admiring wonder to the place where the stern and somewhat gaunt grandeur of the Pestlepolgian column terminated in a head; "this is a great day for us, Mr. Hutton. Hospitality and generosity are the certain signs-' I beg your pardon," stuttered the poor pedagogue, on finding himself quoting from one of the trite axioms with which he was in the habit of ornamenting, in gigantic letters, the copies of his pupils. "Miss Burton," said Marmaduke, with a wave of his hand, "this is Miss Pestlepolge."

Barbara dropped the stiffest of curtseys, which Miss Pestlepolge returned with compound interest; the latter, in fact, was in her element now, and in her dazzling yellow satin dress, which, however gaunt and spare it was from the bosom to the waist downwards,

at that point swelled out into such a gigantic balloon, that some of the less fashionable of the guests, whose costume was a few years behind-hand, were at considerable doubts as to its fair wearer's actual sex, and laboured under a strange suspicion that Penelope was some fresh importation from Owhyhee, whence the present rage for broad skirts is derived. Penelope, it must be confessed, played her part to admiration: the air of lofty disdain her pinched features had assumed, assorted so well with the pearl necklace round her throat, her gold bracelets, and the glittering head-dress she wore, that she was in fact a very different personage to the meek modest thing in a muslin gown and spencer, that Marmaduke Hutton had taken about with him on the visit of ceremony.

And now a crowd of fresh arrivals swept Barbara and her cavalier onwards, and then only did she condescend to see her friends. Presently, to Solomon's intense horror, tea and coffee were handed round in great state, when the latter in the agitation thus entailed upon him, after scorching his mouth and throat with the scalding liquid, at length finished by overturning the remainder upon his stainless inexpressibles. The hapless pedagogue, uttering a groan, in which was concentrated all the horrors of the night, sprang from his seat, and with starting eyeballs, and quivering lips, attempted to diminish the pain by squeezing his attenuated limbs, whilst Barbara soothed him in a most edifying manner by a series of cutting compliments upon his dexterity, a process equally pleasant with the rubbing of vine. gar into a very bad flesh-wound. To this succeeded a dampness surrounding the seat of the injury, equally unpleasant, and in this state, at Barbara's bidding, he led his partner forth to the dance.

On lifting up his eyes, Solomon beheld Marmaduke Hutton about to lead off the dance with Miss Pestlepolge: Marmaduke, with his yellow visage, his white lips, and black teeth the very sight almost deprived the astonished pedagogue of breath, but his own duties and responsibilities soon absorbed all his attention, and Marmaduke Hutton was forgotten.

It would have done a philanthropist's heart good to see Mr. Pestlepolge's demeanour to his friend's guests: how he chatted with the old ladies so pleasantly: how deep and learned were his speculations touching agriculture and the game-laws, steam ploughs, and farmers' clubs, with the fat-headed, jolly-faced, farmers; how demure, and yet how fatherly, he was with the young girls, who blushed, and giggled, and played with their tuckers, when he ac costed them; and how he slapped the young fellows on the back, and pledged them in bumpers of punch and madeira, and in one minute became the wildest rascal (in talk) amongst them; how deferential he was to the little vicar, how urbane to the pimplyfaced doctor! Bless you! in five minutes, he had won the heart

of every man, woman, and child, in the room, and there was a sly twinkle in his sharp grey eyes, and a self-satisfied smirk about the wrinkles of his large unpleasant-looking mouth, which betokened plainly enough his satisfaction at such a state of things.

The old butler hated him heart and soul, for he looked upon him as the sole reason of poor Master Walter's leaving the Grange; and though he had brought out all the old plate and the richest wines on the present occasion, he did so only because Marmaduke Hutton had insisted upon it. The old man, too, was at no pains to conceal his dislike, and always turned on his heel whenever Mr. Pestlepolge came in his way, and walked off with all the dignity he could throw into his somewhat ancient figure. This was almost the only drawback to Pestlepolge's complete success on this occasion, and the latter very cleverly contrived to turn even this adverse circumstance to account by the contrast it afforded to his own meek, self-injured demeanour.

Pestlepolge danced, too-the staid and immaculate Pestlepolge, who looked as solemn as if he had just been assisting at his own funeral, and had scarcely dried his tears in consequence. There was little Miss Midge, a very madcap for fun and mischief, who laughed shockingly loud, and talked very fast, and was a complete hoyden, and doated upon fun, so that all the respectable old ladies regarded her in the light of a congreve rocket, from whose society it behoved them at all times to warn off their own innocent lambs, -Miss Midge, I say, swept down a whole country dance with Mr. Pestlepolge as her partner: her brown hair floating half a yard away from her shoulders, her face dimpled with smiles, and her merry eyes shining out from the surrounding red and white like two diamonds, and behind her sailed the good old man, every thing about him, from his solemnly tied cravat down to his shoestrings, proclaiming, "Here I am, in all my philanthropy, willing to join even in the pleasures of the dance, so that I make my fellow-beings happy!" and every one that beheld him felt that Mr. Pestlepolge, in sober truth, was all but angelic.

Pleasant it was, too, to behold the gentle Penelope, when playing at loo with Doctor Yellowchops, the hard-headed, pimplyfaced village Esculapius, and Judith Liptrot, a meek old maid of fifty-five, whom the gallant doctor had regularly victimised of her shillings for a quarter of a century, without the poor old thing ever suspecting him once of being a cheat. Penelope was so ignorant of those shocking things, with red and black pips, that she really had to be taught a knave from a king, and a club from a diamond; hearts she knew intuitively, as what woman does not? And so the doctor, who only took brevet-rank by courtesy, had always an excuse for leaning over her chair to look at her hand, and winking at her over his cards when Judith Liptrot was not looking, and playfully shaking his head at her, and declaring it

was really too bad, when Penelope won the pool. Penelope was very coy and reserved to the doctor, and playfully confiding, of course, to Judith. But this daunted the former never a bit, and as Judith, in her innocence, was a capital foil, Penelope felt she was very charming in her timidity towards her male antagonist, who, on his part, laughed louder and longer than any one else about him, and joked Judith about her ill luck, and affected a vast show of gallantry towards the frigid Penelope, which put her little heart all in a flutter, though she did not show it in the least.

"Pon my honour, Miss Pestlepolge, but you do sweep the board uncommon fast," quoth the doctor, his great rolling eyes gazing admiringly at the third pool Miss Pestlepolge's taper fingers were sweeping off the table; "really, Miss Judith, you and I had better decamp whilst we've a leg left to hobble away upon,-eh?" "Oh, now, Doctor Yellowchops, I am ashamed of you," simpered Penelope, averting her head from the gallant doctor, as if seriously displeased with him; "you must really be a very great cheat indeed, if your pupils make such rapid progress under your tuition. I really never touched a card before to-night in all my life."

The doctor screwed up his lips, and an ominous "Whew!" was on the point of bursting out therefrom, when he suddenly dispersed the shades his adult visage was harbouring, and vowing "it was all fair, and he was a villain to impute any but the best motives to such a seductive antagonist," cut the cards, and dealt another hand round.

Great was the wrath, and vast the indignation of Mr. Pestlepolge when he discovered his daughter in the very act of sullying her fair fingers with those abominable devices of the evil one, which had whiled away so many dull hours in the lives of Pangrado Yellowchops and Judith Liptrot; and elevating was it to the moral nature of all present to witness the manner in which the meek Penelope poured the oil of her gentle spirit over the troubled waters of her parent's ire; how Judith, poor thing, lifted up her meek eyes, with serious intentions of fainting clean away; and how the doctor cried out, "No! no! Pestlepolge, 'pon honour, now, you're a leetle too strict !-you are indeed!"-and how Pestlepolge shook the honest fellow by the hand, and blessed his darling child, and then ran away, covering his eyes with his hands, lest he should see more of the abominations of Satan; all this was very edifying and very elevating, and two old ladies said it was so, whilst an old yeoman was seen to put his tongue in his cheek, and mutter, "Walker!"

When they had played another game, just to prove, as the doctor said, that they wer'nt afraid of old Pestle,-and which, by-the-bye, the doctor won too,-the card-party broke up, and Penelope was handed down to supper by her new admirer, who, although he had the lamb-like Judith on his other hand, of course devoted his