the exception of one or two very romantic young persons, who had flattered themselves he would die in order that they might go into consumptions, everybody in London was rejoiced when it became known that he was sufficiently recovered to be removed to Walaingham House.

To the honour of the Star and Garter be it spoken, nothing had transpired to the world of certain interviews which had taken place there between the Hon. John Danby and Right Hon. Earl of Walsingham.—But even had waiters and wainscots proved false, it was scarcely likely to be surmised that these meetings were for the purpose of taking into consideration the preliminaries of a marriage between the offspring of the respective parties.

The agitation and distress occasioned by the danger of my friend Frank, had served to acquaint my brother with a a circumstance which, under any other circumstances, would probably have been kept a profound secret

from him ;-namely, that Jane had been passionately attached to my young friend from the first moment of their acquaintance: and that now, at the close of the second year, and after the courtship of half a dozen suitors of the highest pretensions, she remained of opinion she could never be happy as the wife of any other man.

The blow was bitter to my brother,-the struggle of his feelings great.-But he saw her grievously committed in the eyes of the world, grievously humiliated in her own,grievously wounded in heart and soul.-He was afraid, I have sometimes thought, of estranging her affections further from himself; or rather, perhaps, afraid of seeming to visit upon her, by the exercise of his better judgment, her disregard of his feelings in her choice. For he had not been a week aware of Jane's attachment and the warmth of feeling with which it was returned, before he commissioned me to speak to Frank upon the subject;

and proceeded to open a communication with Lord Walsingham !—

measure.

Could I have presumed to offer counsel to a man like Danby, I think I should almost have advised him to abstain from the latter For I knew more of the Earl than he did; and rightly judged that though willing to treat, as between crowned heads, for the hand of his precious Viscount, he regarded all ceremony concerning his junior branches altogether superfluous. Any body was welcome to one of his younger sons, who chose to take him.He saw no occasion, and Danby suggested none, to increase Frank Walsingham's allowance of three hundred a year; and when Danby proposed to give the young people two thousand and a house in Connaught Place, Lord Walsingham looked upon him with compassion not unmingled with contempt, as that phenomenon of civilized life, a Prodigal Father.

An interview far more to the purpose, but I suspect far more painful to my brother, was

the one with Frank, in which he did not grant, but offer his consent to his marriage.—Knowing it to be impossible for Walsingham to hazard proposals, without a guinea for settlements, or a prospect beyond obscurity and want, he spoke first and to the purpose;—nor, but that I was present and heard him, could I have supposed it possible to accord so generous a concession with so little the air of a benefactor.

Odi homines ignavâ operâ, philosophiâ sententiâ;

but the simplicity of Danby's manners, and abstinence from all profession, rendered the magnanimity of his actions a thousand times more striking.

Every one, however, did not admire him as much as I did: every one did not enter into the intensity of his paternal love. Lord Ormington was furious. Lord Ormington had set his heart upon seeing his grand-daughter a Countess, and seemed to loathe the idea of a poor Honourable all the more that it re

minded him of the detested Cecil. A Mrs.

Walsingham!

plished, the wealthy Miss Danby, a Mrs. Walsingham!-I verily believe he would as soon have seen her in her grave. Though now nearly eighty years of age, with him this barren world and its distinctions were still all in all!-

Of course, the whole offence was laid at my door. His Lordship and his Lordship's own man settled it between them that I had wantonly and maliciously introduced Frank Walsingham to my niece; sacrificing her as the victim of my spendthrift friend, lest by her formation of some illustrious alliance, my brother should be induced to charge the family estates to increase her inheritance.

It was useless to vindicate myself. I could not do so without admitting, which kindness to Frank forbad, my heartfelt regret at the marriage. Nobody understood the inequalities of the match half so well as I did. Nobody but