could invent, besides paper enough to write my travels, if they should extend all through the kingdoms of Fez and Morocco. I have also a full month to spare." "But Ilfracombe is so far distant," continued his father.

"Not within fifty miles so far as sir Harry Morley's," answered Charles, with a smile.

66

Well, well, Charles, if you have resolved to go, do as you like," proceeded sir Charles Melville; "it is no business of mine: I have nothing to do with it. How do you go?"

66

Oh, of course by the Barnstaple coach,” replied his son: "I shall not be gone above five or six days."

"As you please-as you please,” rejoined sir Charles, and left the room.

"You are an odd creature, Charles," said Caroline, as soon as her father was gone: you never thought of going to

66

see lady Anne till Mary was there, and

yet

yet you are angry if any one speaks to you on that subject."

"

"I should have gone whether Mary was there or not," replied her brother; "and besides, if it was otherwise, what would that infer? I have been brought up with Mary from childhood, and love her as a sister; but as to any thing farther-The little archer bends his bow in vain."

"And what do you think Mary would feel," demanded Caroline, "if at any future time she was to know the plans that have been proposed for her and you, and to understand the especial pains you have taken to throw cold water on them?":

"I hope she never may know them," replied Charles;" for I am sure, from the very delicacy of her mind, she would feel much hurt that such schemes had ever been formed, without the concurrence of either party being asked; and one thing I can plainly perceive, Caroline, which is, that lord Burton is fully as much inclined

to

to throw cold water on the whole proceeding as any body.",

"I dare say he is," replied Caroline; " and I am sure if he knew all, he would think you still less worthy of her than

ever."

Charles looked piqued, but said nothing, and quitted the room.

"What perverse creatures men are!" thought Caroline;"Charles will never find out how much he loves Mary till he loses her."

The journey on which Charles set out the next day proved rather a tedious one to a mind so bent upon excitement as his, which never found itself half employed, except when engaged actively itself, or furnished with matter for speculation by some passing event. Until three o'clock, a man and a woman, from whose exterior appearance not even his fertile imagination could draw any materials for interest, proved his sole companions; the man, apparently a shopkeeper in a country

town

town-the woman he guessed to be the wife of some recruiting serjeant, going down to join her husband in the country.

At length, however, on stopping to change horses, they received the addition to their party of a stranger, bearing a very different appearance; he was à man of about six or seven-and-thirty years of age, whose strikingly-handsome features corresponded well with a figure of the most muscular proportions. But though his quick, penetrating eyes gave a great deal of character and expression to his countenance, his heavy, contracted brow, and a certain sort of sneer, that every now and then curled his lip, quite took away from the effect of the bland, open smile with which he replied when spoken to. His hair was as black as jet, and his countenance sunburnt and rather pale; and being wrapped in a large, heavy cloak, he looked, with the addition of a round fur cap, not unlike the idea we form of a Spanish guerilla.

Charles

Charles made several attempts to draw him into conversation, to all of which he answered politely, but soon let it drop, until he found that his companion was tired of the endeavour, and was giving it up too, when his rejoinders became more extended, and he himself led the way to several new topics. His information was general and extensive; he had been in almost every country of Europe; was well acquainted with the language and manners of each, and gave such minute details of some of the great historical events that had taken place within the last ten years, that the impression remaining on the mind was, that he must have been personally present at the transactions which he described. With Paris, concerning which city Charles asked a great many questions, he was most intimately acquainted; all its peculiarities, all its dangers, all its vices, seemed to have come within the sphere of his knowledge, though he mixed with the information he conveyed many just but

common