"My head aches; I shall go in." "Oh! I thought you were going to ride," rejoined Tomkins, in a tone of surprise.

"I feel unequal to riding, driving, walking, croquet-playing, talking, laughing, or -crying," said she a little pettishly.

"Crying!" exclaimed Tomkins with a blank face, as he prepared to walk with her to the door; "what is there to cry about ?"

"Nothing that I know of," answered Annie, with a little sigh; and they sauntered into the house without another word. They found Mrs. Maddox, Annie's mother, in a state of that peaceful serenity which results from the performance of a duty. And that duty, to judge from appearances, was performed by means of writing materials and an exquisite-looking little note which lay upon the table before her. Annie gave one quick glance at the superscription; and the gleam of satisfaction which passed with a blush over her face, was speedily succeeded by an expression of regret and the paleness of suppressed emotion.

"My dear Annie," said her mother, "you look far from well; you feel the heat, I fear."

"I feel something, mamma," replied Annie drearily; "but I doubt whether it can be the heat, for hot weather, you know, always agrees with me."

"Don't you think a little brandy and soda- began Tomkins, but he was interrupted by an exclamation from Mrs. Maddox.

Annie had sunk with a moan and a shiver into an easy-chair; where she reclined, white, speechless, motionless.

Tomkins stood the picture of horror, and was incapable of anything beyond an emphatic and general prayer for the blessing of his soul, and incoherent remarks about a doctor, which were no doubt an offer to go and fetch one. But Mrs. Maddox, who had flown to her daughter's side, was perfectly cool and collected, smiled as pleasantly as ever, and said in a sharp and decisive but playful manner:

"Don't be silly: give me that scentbottle on the little table, that's a good man now go and have your ride, and when you come back you will find her quite well again: she has only fainted, that is all: go-go-go;" and she gave him a gentle push.

Tomkins went for his solitary ride; and, as he rode, he thought; and his thoughts were far from cheerful. He appeared to himself to have got into what was called in his phraseology a "jolly mess." If these things were done in the green tree, what would be done in the dry? He had been given to understand by the poets that wooing-tide was the golden time for youth of both sexes. If so, why faint ? He wondered if the same sort of thing happened often during honeymoons; and, if it did, how glad he would be to get his honeymoon over and have Mrs. Maddox to help him. He fancied he saw now how it is that mothers-in-law get the thin end of the wedge in. He had found Annie all that was bright and sprightly, until he had shown her unusual attention; then she had become ill; the doctor had been called in, and she had all at once taken to melancholy and fainting fits. It was complimentary to him, perhaps, that the prospect of accepting or rejecting him should cause her such evidently serious consideration; but he was a plain man, who preferred comfort to compliments. He had elicited from her that there was no previous engagement; and he rather wished now that there had been, he might then have got out of his scrape without having his dignity offended. As matters stood, he was in a position about which he would have liked to consult Mr. Gladstone; for he had that statesman's favorite number of three courses open. He might boldly but dishonorably "back out," and have a chance of discovering the pecuniary value attached by twelve British jurymen (fathers, perhaps, of lovely daughters) to the privilege of becoming Mrs. Tomkins; he might ride his horse desperately over the cliff and put an end to himself and his horse and his fears and anxieties; and he might philosophically bide his time until the fatal week was over and he was flatteringly accepted and a bond-slave, or ignominiously rejected and a free man. To either the first or the second course he was not inclined, for he inherited a disposition which was incompatible with even a possible payment of damages, or with self-inflicted wounds or death; and, as to the third, he was upheld by a conviction that, from what he knew of himself and his family, he was sufficiently elastic of nature and thick of skin to bear with cheerfulness the amount of .ignominy that would fall to his lot, and to make up

his mind never again to be in a similar predicament. If he were, contrary to his expectation and even wishes, accepted, he would face the future like a man, and strive to atone by a life of devotion for the error he had committed in making a precipitate declaration. For, when he came to commune with himself alone, he could not help seeing that he had been precipitate. He had proposed simply because for three months he had been constantly thrown into the society of a charming girl, had arrived at the end of his stock of conversation, and could not plead to his conscience poverty as a reason why he should refrain from "coming up to the scratch." He now lamented that he had not at least waited to be sounded as to his intentions; for, even then, no more could have been wrung from him than he had voluntarily offered, and he would, probably, have gained an interval during which some diversion might have been created in his favor. Such were the reflections, during his ride, of Tomkins, whose mind had been so seriously disturbed by the faintingfit that he distorted and misrepresented facts, and tried disingenuously to convince himself that twenty-four hours ago he had not considered Annie and heaven synonymous.

In the meanwhile Annie had recovered from her swoon, and she and Mrs. Maddox were conversing freely.

"If he writes to me as former said, "I shall feel another year."

usual," the bound for

"He'll not write," was the confident reply.

Annie looked wistfully at her mother, who smiled in the sweetest possible

"recollect that the refined wife polishes the unrefined husband." "It will be mamma."

a very difficult task,

"Patience, perseverance, and eight hundred a year, will surmount all difficulties. It is not as if he were hideous in appear ance, or likely to be rebellious."

Annie laughed and rejoined, "I could put him in shafts and drive him with a skein of silk."

"To be sure, my dear," replied Mrs. Maddox in a tone of intense satisfaction; "and that is a great thing. It insures domestic peace, if not happiness."

"But I'm so young as yet, mamma; and Mr. Bushby might in a year or so

"Procrastination, my darling Annie, in such matters is most dangerous. I always think of that foolish king who refused the Sibylline books, and was afterwards obliged to take a portion of them. You might find yourself at thirty years of age accepting an offer of three hundred a year, or getting no offer at all.”

"At any rate, Mr. Bushby is a gentleman," said Annie with a sigh.

66

Mr. Bushby's only drawback," rejoined Mrs. Maddox, warmly, "is inability to maintain a wife. But that, you have already allowed, is fatal."

66

Quite so, mamma," assented Annie, disconsolately; "poor Mr. Bushby!"

The last words smote upon the ear of Tomkins, as he entered the room on returning from his ride, and made him feel a little uncomfortable. For he had seen the superscription of the note which had been written by Mrs. Maddox, and that fact, coupled with Annie's exclamation, had caused him to conceive sentiments of suspicion and hatred towards this unknown Bushby, whose name was beginning to appear portentously upon the scene. However, he was received with so much cordiality by both daughter and mother that his perturbed spirit was soon at rest, and he took quite a poetical flight when Mrs. Maddox judiciously gave him and Annie an opportunity of an unobserved parting.

"In a week," said he, "I shall come back to hear my fate; and pray remember that 'yes' rhymes to 'bless,' and 'no' to 'blow;' your answer will make me happy for ever, or strike me down into the dust of misery."

And so he departed to spend a week of suspense in solitary travelling and in won

definite engagement was simply because he had no immediate prospects, and thought it would be unfair to fetter her for, perhaps, the best years of her life. And now, as a dark suspicion crossed his mind, he put back the little notes in their accustomed place and muttered: "Love or lucre that is the question."

Friday came and went; Annie's birthday was over, and there had been no letter of congratulation from "that horrid Mr. Bushby." And though Annie had been nervous and peevish and ill all the day, she was quite herself again on Saturday. For it is astonishing how small a quantity of salve will suffice to cure a wounded conscience, especially in the case of a marriageable young woman. Annie felt absolved from her curious, tacit, long-continued understanding with Bushby, so soon as he discontinued the only overt act which seemed to bind them together. He, not she, had broken the spell; and she laid that flattering unction to her soul. Had he written, she would have written back and considered herself committed to their singular compact for another year. It may seem strange to those who take extremely elevated views of human nature, that she should not have inquired into the means taken for preventing Bushby from writing; but she had great confidence in her mother's tact, and was contented with results. She was now perfectly free, and intended to avail herself of her freedom. Let not sentimental persons cry out indignantly that Annie could not have behaved thus, for they will at once be confuted by facts. She actually did behave thus; and so there is an end for it. She was not at all sentimental; she was a practical girl, strongly impressed with the duty of getting advantageously married, to the man she liked best, if it were possible, but, even at the cost of a serious fit of illness, at any rate to somebody. It is more than probable that, if Bushby had asked her, she would have consented to wait until she was gray-headed, but his sense of justice would not allow him to do so; and consequently his first stool began to slip from him.

He almost felt it slipping; and was already turning his thoughts seriously towards his second, when he made his remark about "love or lucre."

Bushby appealed to his memory for information about Ellen Parry; but without any immediate response. At last the faithful organ became more communicative, and revealed to him certain facts which he had clean forgotten. He executed a crab-like movement backwards, until he became once more seven years and was walking in a garden with two or three girls. was a pretty little boy; and they, who had up to the time of that very walk been complete strangers to him, after eying him carefully and approvingly, whispered together and giggled; and then one of them fell suddenly upon him and kissed him, saying, "You are a little darling."

He

She was quite twelve years old, and her name was Ellen Parry. She had struck him as being frightful to look at, and he had resented the liberty she had taken with him in a manner which only made her laugh good-naturedly and repeat her outrageous conduct. They had ultimately, however, become very good friends, when she went abroad with her parents, and he had never seen her since, or even heard of her. She was his Aunt Carson's niece, and she had lately lost her father, who was his Aunt Carson's brother. She must now be thirty-two years of age if she was a day, and, if she had fulfilled the promise of her girlhood, must have grown up to be hideous. However, he would be able to decide upon the question of her hideousness when Thursday evening came. It came; and Bushby was punc

as

tual and arrived at the door of his uncle's house, in a small square in the parish of Kensington, as the clock struck the half hour after six. Ellen and her mother gave him a hearty greeting; remembered him perfectly (they said); and showed the greatest interest in him and his pursuits, making their conversation during dinner turn thereon often as they could. As for him, he was chiefly engaged in taking stock of Ellen. She looked quite her age, and even more than five years older than Bushby, who had the appearance of being younger than he was. She was not hideous, but she was decidedly plain; and in the manner in which she had arranged her hair and in the style. of her dress there was displayed either an ignorance of or contempt for prevailing fashions. She wore an air of great determination, and she expressed her opinions with frankness and self-confidence, though she listened with marked deference to what Bushby said, either agreeing with him cordially, or differing from him with evident reluctance. She expressed unbounded admiration for his profession (which was the bar); and she declared that the magazine to which he occasionally (it appeared) contributed articles was her favorite. After dinner she played some pieces, with considerable skill, on the piano; and it turned out that she and Bushby had the same taste in music.

Bushby's uncle never omitted to smoke tobacco in his study of an evening, and he, about half-past nine, carried off Bushby with him into the regions of smoke. As they sat face to face and puffed in unison, the uncle seemed buried in thought; but at last he said brusquely:

"That girl has thirty thousand pounds, John, if she has a penny."

"Miss Parry, you mean," rejoined Bushby, carelessly.

"Of course I do," replied the uncle, testily: "perhaps I ought to have said woman, for she is not any longer a girl," he added, with a short cough.

"No, she is not," assented Bushby, drily.

His uncle eyed him keenly, and repeated:

"She has thirty thousand pounds, though, if she has a penny."

"So you said before, sir," observed Bushby.

"And she has no nonsense about her," continued the uncle: "she has told your aunt that now her father is dead and has left her well off, and she is no longer tied to home as she was by him, she wants to be married, and means to be, too."

"She'll soon get picked up-with thirty thousand pounds," remarked Bushby, unconcernedly.

"But suppose she doesn't want to be picked up?" sneered the uncle, with angry emphasis.

"Well she'll soon pick somebody up, then," rejoined Bushby, carelessly.

The uncle made no reply, but sat and regarded his nephew discontentedly; and his face assumed the appearance ascribed to the great Pan in the words:

ἐντὶ δὲ πικρὸς,

Καί οἱ ἀεὶ δριμεῖα χολὰ ποτὲ ῥινὶ καθῆται,

for "bitter choler wrinkled round his nose."

But after a few moments' pause he asked sharply:

Any briefs this year, John ?" "No," answered Bushby, lazily; "only three guineas' worth of soup." "Soup! what d'ye mean ?" snapped the uncle.

Bushby explained the meaning of barristers' " soup;" and his uncle continued:

"You've only your fellowship to live on, then ?"

"That's all," replied Bushby curtly. "Two hundred a year, isn't it?"

"Two hundred and ten pounds fifteen shillings and twopence halfpenny it was last year," said the accurate Bushby.

"And if you married, you would have to give it all up?”

"To the very halfpenny."

"How long do you think it will be before you make as much at the bar?" "Do you allude to the halfpenny, sir ?" Pan's nose wrinkled once more with ire as he snarled:

"You know well enough I meant the fellowship."

"Well, sir," rejoined Bushby, "I haven't sufficient data (that is, cases given to me) to calculate upon; but I should think about a century."