CHAPTER VI.

"MY LIFE, I LOVE THEE!"

Then, in that time and place I spoke to her,
Requiring, tho' I knew it was mine own,

Yet for the pleasure that I took to hear,
Requiring, at her hand, the greatest gift,
A woman's heart, the heart of her I loved.

HEN "hope deferred," and baffled love combined, had well-nigh made me as miserable and woebegone as

I could possibly be, I heard a piece of news one day which almost nerved up my halting resolution to bring affairs to a final issue by speaking out again to Mrs. Clydeno matter what might be the result.

The joyful intelligence was circulated by the pleased Lady Dasher, that, Mr. Mawley

had at length proposed for her daughter, Bessie. It was time for it, as he had angled around and nibbled warily at the tempting bait offered him-like the knowing fish that he was for months before he would permit himself to be caught!

The curate had, doubtless, noticed at length that the damsel was comely withal; and, his heart yearned towards her. The reverend gentleman, however, had not been unobservant of the charms of other maidens with whom he had been brought in contact, so, it may be presumed that his heart had "yearned" in vain for them; or, peradventure, these had not played with him so dexterously, when once hooked, as did the fair Bessie-who had not been the granddaughter of an Irish peer for nothing!

Still, there is no object to be gained now in raking up all of Mr. Mawley's old conquests or defeats, ere his present "wooing and a':"-he had been accepted, in this his most recent venture, and was engaged explicitly— Lady Dasher taking very good care to inform everybody of her acquaintance of the fact, in order that there might arise no such

VOL. II.

8

little mistake as that of the curate's backing out of the alliance.

Her ladyship only wished for one thing more to make her "happy," so she said; and that was, that her "poor dear papa" were but alive, so that she might tell him, too, about the coming event. This was impossible though, as she added, with her customary melancholy shake of the head, and a return to her normal expression of poignant grief; for, as she said very truly, "one can never expect to be thoroughly happy in this weary pilgrimage of ours!"

Her complete gratification would, certainly, have been little less than a miracle.

The engagement was of very short duration, Bessie's mamma acting up to the Hibernian policy of "cooking her fish," as soon as she had captured him. There's " many a slip," you know, “'twixt "'twixt cup and lip."

Mawley would probably have gladly lingered yet awhile longer amid the festive scenes of clerical bachelorhood, flirting—in a devout way, of course under the shade of the church, with Chloe and Daphne, those unappropriated spinsters of the parish who

took pleasure in ministering to the social wants of the curate and others of his cloth.

But, it was not to be. for a wonder, wise in her

Lady Dasher was, generation; and, the

twain not my lady and Mawley, but her daughter and ditto-were married within a month after the public announcement of their attachment, much to the surprise of St. Canon's, the mortification of sundry single ladies thereof, and the well-disguised delight of Lady Dasher, who, even on such a festive occasion, looked more melancholic than ever.

It was this, that nerved me up to desperation. Why, thought I, the day after the wedding, as I paced along the Prebend's Walk-over which the long-branched elms and waving oaks and thickly-growing lime-trees formed a perfect arch, in all the panoply of their new summer leaves, sheltering one from rain and sun alike—why, thought I, should that fellow, Mawley, be made happy, and I not?

Really, I could not answer the question at all satisfactorily.

You see, I was not able to come to a decision with myself as to whether I should re

peat the darling request which I had made to Min very nearly twelve months before, or wait on still in suspense. The risk of the former course was great, for, Mrs. Clyde might, and most likely would, put an end immediately to all communication whatever between us, should she continue hostile to my suit an eventuality horrible to contemplate; and yet, would it not be better for me to be relieved from the existing state of uncertainty in which my mind was plunged?

What must I do?

I had to determine that point, at all

events.

I could not settle it in a moment: it was far too weighty a consideration—it required serious deliberation. So, I paced on, still moodily to the end of the Prebend's Walk ; and, although it was raining heavily, sat down. on the stone balustrade of the little rustic bridge over the fosse, facing the river." Ah me!" I reflected, calling to my memory Thackeray's sad lament, in that seeminglycomic "Ballad of the Bouillabaisse," which is all the more pathetic from its affected humour.