eventful moment absorbingly engaged with a letter announcing the sudden arrival of three ships with large cargoes of an article of which he had been attempting a monopoly, and in doing so had sunk a very large sum of ready money. In vain did the conscious and confused girl-confused as Elliott-remove her chair to the window, with her back towards him, and attempt to proceed with the book she had been reading. Her head seemed in a whirlpool.

"Get me my desk, Mary, immediately," said her father, suddenly.

66

'No, indeed, papa, you didn't," replied Miss Hillary, as suddenly, for her father's voice had recalled her from a strange revery.

"My desk, Mary-my desk-dy'e hear?" repeated her father, in a peremptory manner, still conning over the letter which told him, in effect, that he would retire to bed that night four or five thousand pounds poorer than he rose from it-ignorant that within the last few moments, in his very presence, had happened that which was to put an end for ever to all his dreams of a coronet glittering upon his daughter's brow!

Miss Hillary obeyed her father's second orders, carefully looking in every direction but that in which she would have encountered Elliott; and whispering a word or two into her father's ear, quitted the room. Elliott's heart was beating quickly when the harsh tones of Mr. Hillary, who had worked himself into a very violent humour, fell upon his ear, directing him to return immediately to the city, and say he had no answer to send till the morning, when he was to be in attendance at an early hour.

Scarce knowing whether he stood on his head or his heels, Elliott hurriedly bowed, and withdrew. Borne along on the current of his tumultuous emotions, he seemed to fly down the swarming City Road; and when he reached the dull dingy little back counting house where he was to be occupied till a late hour of the night, he found himself not in the fittest humour in

the world for his task. Could he possibly be mistaken in interpreting Miss Hillary's look? Was it not corroborated by her subsequent conduct? And, bythe-way, now that he came to glance backward into the two or three months during which he had been almost daily in her presence, divers little incidents started up into his recollection, all tending the same way. "Heighho!" exclaimed Elliott, laying down his yet unused pen, after a long and bewildering revery" I wonder what Miss Hillary is thinking about! Surely I have had a kind of day dream! It can't have really happened! And yet-how could there have been a mistake? Heaven knows I had taken nothing to excite or disorder me-except, perhaps, my long walk! Here's a coup de soleil, by-the-way, with a witness! But only to think of it-Miss Hillary— daughter of Jacob Hillary, Esq.-in love with--an under clerk of her father's-pho! it will never do! I'll think of it to-morrow morning." Thus communed Elliott with himself, by turns writing, pausing, and soliloquizing, till the lateness of the hour compelled him to apply to his task in good earnest. He did not quit his desk till it had struck ten; from which period till that at which he tumbled into his little bed, he fancied that scarcely five minutes had elapsed.

He made his appearance at Bullion House the next morning with a sad fluttering about the heart, but it soon subsided, for Miss Hillary was not present to prolong his agitation. He had not been seated for many minutes, however, before he observed her in a distant part of the gardens, apparently tending some flowers. As his eye followed the movements of her graceful figure, he could not avoid a faint sigh of regret at his own absurdity in raising such a superstructure of splendid possibilities upon so slight a foundation. His attention was at that instant arrested by Mr. Hillary's multifarious commands for the city: and, in short, Miss Hillary's absence from town for about a week, added to a great increase of business at the counting

house, owing to an extensive failure of a foreign correspondent, gradually restored Elliott to his senses, and banished the intrusive image of his lovely tormentor. Her unequivocal exhibition of feeling, however-unequivocal at least to him-on the occasion of the next meeting, instantly revived all his former excitement, and plunged him afresh into the soft tumult of doubts, hopes, and fears, from which he had so lately emerged. Every day that he returned to Mr. Hillary brought him fresh evidence of the extent to which he had encroached upon Miss Hillary's affections; and strange, indeed, must be that heart which, feeling itself alone and despised in the world, can suddenly find itself the object of a most enthusiastic and disinterested attachment without kindling into a flame of grateful affection. Was there anything wonderful or improbable in the conduct attributed to Miss Hillary? No. A girl of frank and generous feeling, she saw in one, whom undeserved misfortune had placed in a very painful and trying position, the constant exhibition of high qualities; a patient and dignified submission to her father's cruel and oppressive treatment a submission on her account; she beheld his high feeling conquering misfortune; she saw in his eye-his every look-his whole demeanour, susceptibilities of an exalted description: and beyond all this -last, though not least, as Elliott acted the gentleman, so he looked it—and a handsome gentleman, too! So it came to pass, then, that these two hearts became acquainted with each other, despite the obstacles of circumstance and situation. A kind of telegraphing courtship was carried on between them daily, which must have been observed by Mr. Hillary, but for the engrossing interest with which he regarded the communications of which Elliott was always the bearer. Mr. Hillary began, however, at length, to recover the use of his limbs, and rapidly to gain general strength. He consequently announced one morning to Elliott, that he should not require him to call after the morrow.

At this time the lovers had never interchanged a syllable together, either verbal or written, that could savour of love; and yet each was as confidant of the state of the other's feelings, as though a hundred closely written, and closer-crossed letters, had been passing between them. On the dreadful morrow he was pale and somewhat confused, nor was she far otherwise; but she had a sufficient reason in the indisposition of her mother, who had for many months been a bed-ridden invalid. As for Elliott, he was safe. He might have appeared at death's door without attracting the notice, or exciting the inquiries of his callous employer. As he rose to leave the room, Elliott bowed to Mr. Hillary; but his last glance was directed towards Miss Hillary, who, however, at that moment was, or appeared to be, too busily occupied with pouring out her excellent father's coffee, to pay any attention to her retiring lover, who consequently retired from her presence not a little piqued and alarmed.

They had no opportunity of seeing one another till nearly a month after the occasion just alluded to; when they met under circumstances very favourable for the expression of such feelings as either of them dared to acknowledge-and the opportunity was not thrown away. Mr. Hillary had quitted town for the north, on urgent business, which was expected to detain him for nearly a fortnight; and Elliott failed not, on the following Sunday, to be at the post he had constantly occupied for some months-namely, a seat in the gallery of the church attended by Mr. Hillary and his family, commanding a distant view of the great central pewmatted, hassocked, and velvet cushioned, with a rich array of splendid implements of devotion, in the shape of Bibles and prayer books, great and small, with gilt edges, and in blue and red morocco, being the favoured spot occupied by the great merchant-where he was pleased by his presence to assure the admiring vicar of his respect for him and the established church. Miss Hillary had long since been aware of the pres

ence of her timid and distant lover on, these occasions; they had several times nearly jostled against one another in going out of church, the consequence of which was generally a civil though silent recognition of him. And this might be done with impunity, seeing how her wealthy father was occupied with nodding to everybody, genteel enough to be so publicly recognised, and shaking hands with the select few who enjoyed his personal acquaintance. With what a different air and with what a different feeling did the great merchant and his humble clerk pass on these occasions down the aisle !

But to return. On the Sunday above alluded to, Elliott beheld Miss Hillary enter the church alone, and become the solitary tenant of the family pew. Sad truants from his prayer book, his eyes never quitted the fair and solitary occupant of Mr. Hillary's pew; but she chose, in some wayward humour, to sit that morning with her back turned towards the part of the church where she knew Elliott to be, and never once looked up in that direction. They met, however, after the service, near the door, as usual; she dropped her black veil just in time to prevent his observing a certain sudden flush that forced itself upon her features; returned his modest bow; a few words of course were interchanged; it threatened, or Elliott chose to represent that it threatened to rain: (which he heartily wished it would, as she had come on foot, and unattended :) and so, in short, it came to pass that this very discreet couple were to be seen absolutely walking arm in arm towards Bullion House, at the slowest possible pace, and by the most circuitous route that could suggest itself to the flurried mind of Elliott. An instinctive sense of propriety, or rather prudence, led him to quit her arm just before arriving at that turn of the road which brought them full in sight of her father's house. There they parted, each satisfied as to the nature of the other's feelings, though nothing had then passed between them of an explicit or decisive character.