'Oh, say not so,' returned I. Hold on to me. You may squeeze my hand as tight as you please; that is the only way to keep yourself from falling.'

Even in that dim bottle-green light, I saw a lovely blush steal over her damask cheek; but she did take hold of my hand, and held it pretty tight, too. 'What an oppression I feel about my forehead,' observed she; my brain seems on fire."

'So does mine, my dear young lady,' replied I; 'and my heart goes pit-a-pat, pit-a-pat.'

'So does mine,' said she. 'I am told the phenomenon happens in all these submarine excursions.' 'Why, we ain't off, yet,' observed the page contemptuously, who had been (most unjustifiably) listening to our conversation. I should perhaps have rebuked him, but at that moment the awful bell swung out from terra firma, and we beheld beneath us the cold and treacherous wave.

'What a terrible situation!' ejaculated my fair companion.

'Not altogether,' returned I, with a pressure of the fingers.

We are leaving all behind us—or at least above us,' added she, for even in that awful moment her native correctness did not desert her. Heaven preserve us, what was that!

A cannon appeared to have gone off immediately outside my ear, and then it went on firing a royal salute and didn't stop then.

I trembled like an aspen-leaf, but not so much as the beautiful being who relied upon me for succour. We leaned up against one another for mutual support. With my left arm, I mechanically encircled her waist; with my right hand, I grasped half-a-dozen of the page's buttons. On one side of me was Poetry; on the other, Science.

'What are those dreadful guns?' inquired the young lady.

Guns! cried the page laughing, a laugh peculiar (I hope) to water-kelpies. That's only the tinpaniem of your ear a-busting, bless yer. It'll get wuss and wuss, and the top of your 'ed will be like to fly off, as it seems to you, before we gets to the bottom. A comin' up, you'll like it better.'

'Dear girl,' whispered I, in tones of comfort, 'you will find it some relief to lay your head upon my

shoulder.'

I do believe, if I had not had fast hold of that boy by his buttons, that he would have fallen off his seat into the water, in a paroxysm of mirth, and left us without any protector. 'Lor' bless ye, miss,' replied he, when he got breath enough to do so, that's the beating of the hair-pump, that is: if that was to stop for arf a minute, it would be all Hookey with us in this 'ere bell.'

Hookey!' ejaculated the terrified young creature. "What dreadful language he does use!-You haven't got a waterproof coat on, have you, sir?'

I trembled as the dear girl made this extraordinary inquiry, for I thought that terror was depriving her of reason. Could she imagine that a Mackintosh would save us, ever so many fathoms under water as

They pump the air through india-rubber tubes,' I answered.

'How wise you are,' said she admiringly; 'how nice it must be to know everything.'

'Very nice,' said I; please to tell me, therefore, what name you bear in the upper world. I have read of sirens and mermaids- How dare you touch that lady's dress,' cried I with excessive indignation, as the scientific page made a sudden snatch at her petticoats.

"They was a-gettin' into the water, that's why,' returned the youth with sulkiness. 'Don't you go a-hollerin' at me. It's my duty to take care of all as comes down here, and I have my orders about their petticoats.'

'My good boy,' said I, 'here is half-a-crown for you. I am sorry I spoke so loud, because water conducts sound with great facility, and they may have heard me up above. All that passes among ourselves here should be respected, as being of a private nature.'

'Mum is the word,' observed the page, and he winked with an air of supernatural and submarine cunning at the unconscious Charlotte Elizabeth-for it is needless to say that the enchanting young mermaiden was she.

Almost immediately afterwards, we began to ascend; every instant the guns fired with less distinctness, and we became more like our usual selves. But during the few minutes that we had been immersed, I had experienced a complete metamorphosis-I had suffered a sea-change into something rich and strange.' I had descended fancy free, I arose a captive to the Diving Belle.

The rest of the courtship was of the ordinary description, and terminated in the usual way.

THE PRINCE OF WALES AND THE DUCHY OF CORNWALL.

WE are all just now interested in the welfare of a young Prince, whose relations to the Queen, to the nation, and to a Danish princess, all combine to place him in a remarkable position. We shall ere long know what provision parliament will agree to make for the Prince of Wales. Marlborough House is to be his town residence; and we hope and believe that it is destined to be a purer home than that which the Prince Regent maintained at another mansion in the same street half a century ago. As regards pecuniary resources, there is a revenue coming to the Prince of Wales of a kind very little known to general readers, and worthy of attention. The Prince is Duke of Cornwall, and that dukedom is worth a good round sum of money to him annually. It is unlike any other duchy or dukedom in England, owing to its peculiar relations to the tin-mines on the one hand, and to the heir-apparent to the throne on the other. The duke, too, is a sort of judge, for he is 'Lord Warden of the Stannaries—a judicial position known only in the tin-mining districts.

The stannary laws may be thus briefly explained. As to the word itself, it is evidently derived from the Latin name for tin, stannum. Sometimes, in past days, stannary denoted a tin-mine; sometimes all the tin-mines in a particular district; sometimes the royal or ducal rights in reference to tin. At present, however, stannary is a general word of very wide acceptation, denoting at once the tin-mines within a particular district, the miners and tinners employed therein, and the customs and privileges applying both to the owners and the tinners of the mines. The stannary of Cornwall (using the term in its large sense) was first established when the duchy of that shire was granted in perpetuity to the Princes of Wales: Edward the Black Prince being the first possessor. Under the general laws of England, the crown is

year.

With his household and officers as Prince of Wales, we have nothing here to do; but as Duke of Cornwall he has a separate establishment, wholly disconnected from the rest. There is a Duchy of Cornwall Office' in the immediate vicinity of St James's Park; and the official directories tell us of the Prince of Wales's Council,' a sort of privy-council for the affairs of the duchy, consisting of six or eight noble and distinguished persons. Indeed, the whole establishment has a very royal sound about it; for, besides the Prince's Council, there are a 'Lord Warden of the Stannaries and Chief Steward of the Duchy,' a 'Secretary to the Lord Warden and Keeper of the Duchy Records,' a 'Chancellor and Keeper of the Great Seal,' a Surveyor-general,' an Attorneygeneral,' an Auditor,' a Receiver,' a 'Vice-warden of the Stannary Courts,' a 'Mineral Inspector,' a 'Land Agent,' a 'Ranger and Master Forester,' a 'Constable of Launceston Castle,' several 'Stewards of Estates and Revenues,' and a staff of subordinate officers and clerks. Some of these officials have the management of the revenues of the duchy, while others execute the very peculiar judicial functions of the duke in Cornwall. The late Prince Consort, during nearly the whole of the minority of the Prince of Wales, held the office of Lord Warden of the Stannaries and Chief Steward of the Duchy; and there can be little doubt that that clear-minded and conscientious man superintended the affairs of the duchy with scrupulous exactness.

It may be asked why, if the Duke of Cornwall has only the pleasant office of receiving some sixteen thousand pounds a year from the Consolidated Fund, in lieu of dues formerly collected in a direct way, he should require all this official machinery. The answer is it is not only thus. The duke is a landowner, a forest-owner, a house-owner, a man who grants leases, and accepts fines or bonuses on their renewal; and arising from all this, his net revenue is a great deal more than sixteen thousand a year. The duchy, when conferred upon the Black Prince in the year 1333, was declared by the charter of bestowal to comprise all the tin wilds,' ten castles, nine parks, fifty-five manors, thirteen boroughs, nine of the divisions called 'hundreds,' and a deer forest. These, or many of them, yielded annual revenue; and such revenue has continued, in more or less altered form, down to the present day. At first, however, the amount was only small. The Duke of Cornwall had no power to grant definite leases of manors and farms, because the tenure depended on the life of the sovereign; and therefore there was very little leasing or letting. It was not until 1622 that an improvement was wrought in this matter. James I. obtained the consent of parliament to remodel the affairs of the duchy. A statute was passed, whereby farms might be held in perpetuity by renewable leases; and an inducement was offered to the duke to improve the land by drainage or otherwise, as a means of increasing the rental.

What, then, is the revenue which our young Prince, who bears with him so much of the good-will of his countrymen, derives from that said duchy of Cornwall, into which he has recently entered possession? An annual Blue-book tells us all about it. The revenue for 1862 was about equal to that of 1861, and 1863 will probably exhibit figures nearly analogous, so that the amounts for 1861 will suit our purpose. There was the annuity of about L.16,000 a year, in lieu of the tin duties already adverted to; there was L.7000 for 'royalties and reservations of dues and rents of mines and quarries;' there was L.32,000 for 'rents and profits of courts'-derived in considerable part from estates held by the duke in the counties of Surrey, Hertford, Lincoln, Norfolk, Suffolk, Dorset, Somerset, Wilts, Berks, and Devon, as well as in Cornwall; there was L.3000 for produce of the royalties of coal-mines in the county of Somerset ;' and L.3000 for 'dividends and interest on cash in

hand'-making a total of somewhat over L.60,000 for the year. On the other hand, the repairs, permanent improvements, property and other taxes, tithe rentcharges, superannuation allowances, salaries, surveys, valuations, plans, &c., absorbed about L.15,000leaving to his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales about L.45,000 a year, destined in future to help to support himself and his young Danish bride in a style befitting his position as heir-apparent to the throne.

COUSIN FRANK.

FRANCIS DAYRELL was my first-cousin; we had been much together in childhood; and I, as well as his other near relations, invariably spoke to him and of him as Frank;' yet the word was a gross misnomer, as names often are. The phrase conjures up the image of a brave, candid boy, with blue eyes, fair hair, and an affectionate but headstrong nature; whereas the real Frank Dayrell was very dark, slender, and taciturn. Handsome enough and clever enough, my cousin certainly was; but he had one of those dispositions, at once moody and sensitive, which confer anything but happiness on the possessor. Thus, he let duller lads beat him at school, and duller men beat him at college, and all his unquestioned abilities ran to seed in dreamy poetry or Byronic moroseness. Such has been the fate of many a more brilliant youth than my wayward relative, and people soon began to shake their heads when Frank's name was mentioned. Some old gentlemen, friends of the family, confessed that they had thought better things of the boy; others, more clear-sighted or less delicate, boasted that they had known all along that he was incurably idle, obstinate, and useless. Meanwhile, the young man himself cared not a jot for these angry or mournful comments on his character, but pursued a desultory course of conduct, rambling aimlessly about, reading by fits and starts, or lying for whole afternoons on the sunny beach before a summer sea, lazy and self-satisfied as any Neapolitan. I now feel assured that the policy pursued towards this truant from the working-world was an injudicious one. He should have been humoured, indulged, treated with gentleness, and gradually tempted into emulation or shamed into exertion. The wild colt should have been coaxed by degrees to submit its neck to the collar. Under such treatment, many more wilful personages than Francis Dayrell have been brought back to ambition and duty, and played their part manfully in the battle of life; but in my cousin's case, the well-meant efforts of his nearest and dearest terminated as ill as well-meant efforts often do, where discretion is lacking. mother was extravagantly fond and proud of her gifted son, and his disappointment of all her early hopes for his advancement had given her exquisite pain and annoyance. His sisters, taught from the nursery to love and admire their only brother, were as vexed at his inglorious abandonment of the bright career their fancy had chalked out for him, as ever was a heathen at the silence and callousness of the idol he worshipped. All the family-mother, sisters, brotherhad what is called a proud spirit, quick feelings, and a fair share of talent; hence arose one of those petulant wars that are often not uncommon round what should be a happy hearth-a war of words, of sneers, and taunts, and reproaches, and truces soon to be broken, and skirmishes ever renewed. There was no father to interpose between the loving but querulous disputants. Dayrell's father had died before his son was five years old, and he had grown up the spoiled darling of a household of women. Thus, hardly surprised to hear that Cousin Frank had ended all the bickerings and arguments by abruptly going abroad. The news reached me through an indirect channel. I was in the Temple then, working double tides, after the fashion of young men who have a

His

was

natural aptitude for labour, and who have not yet learned that the woolsack is to be reached, if at all, by patient plodding rather than seven-league strides. Frank and I had been the best possible friends; but latterly, our paths had diverged pretty widely. At his mother's entreaty, I, as well as other connections, old and young, had spoken to Frank with reference to his deliberate waste of the golden hours, and his refusal to embrace a profession; but I had failed, as I expected to fail, and had had to draw in my horns in time, before the debate warmed into a quarrel. So, when I heard that the family Timon had gone abroad in the sulks, I heaved a momentary sigh of regret over the wasted life of one to whom I had once been much attached, turned another page of Coke or Blackstone, and forgot my cousin in the intricacies of British law. This was in the spring; and it was not until the week preceding the Christinas of the same year, that I heard anything with regard to my relations the Dayrells. Then Aunt Dayrell wrote a kind letter to invite me down to the manor-house in Yorkshire,

I had not been there for nearly three years, but I well remembered, when a boy, how my heart leaped at the idea of a delightful holiday at Dayrell Manor, where there were ponies, boats, keepers, guns, dogs, and all that boys dote upon. My own mother had been a Dayrell, a sister of Frank's dead father; but I was myself a member of a much poorer family; and I enjoyed the field-sports and rural pleasures of those visits all the more heartily from the contrast they afforded to the habits of the decaying town where I was reared. 'Well,' said I, as I sat in my lonely chambers, high up in Fig Tree Court, I may as well accept. Law is a noble study, to be sure, and I want to master the whole theory of entail in all its bearings, but I am a leetle tired. My eyes ache, my temples throb, and my shoulders are getting rounded with everlasting stooping over my books. I'm as pale as vellum, and the dust of all these legal folios is getting mixed up with my blood, and drying me into a mummy. Yorkshire will freshen me up. I'll go!' So I wrote an acceptance, and began to ransack my trunks and chests of drawers, and hunt up various long-neglected articles for evening wear. There will be charades, and dances, and all sorts of hospitable tomfoolery, from dinner-parties to a "lawnmeet" of the hounds,' muttered I, as I tossed over my linen in search of some embroidered shirts. All this will do me good, for I have grown into a sort of hermit crab, and should be as awkward as a raw school-boy if I had to dance with any sprightly young lady. Too much study has done for me what too little has done for Frank-the hare and the tortoise, as the poor fellow used to call us.'

Then I remembered, while groaning over the obsolete cut of my best waistcoat, that my trouble was most likely gratuitous. Frank was still away; so I concluded from the fact that my aunt's letter contained no mention of his name. It was the first I had ever received from the proud mother without a mention of her son's name. I bethought me, therefore, that with the wayward hope of the house in self-imposed exile, and on bad terms with his family, Dayrell Manor was likely to be but a melancholy abiding-place. Never mind; I would take the embroidered shirts and white chokers all the same. Besides, how could I tell what might have occurred? The prodigal-not that poor Frank was vicious or extravagant, but merely a poetic drone and crotchety enthusiast for German æsthetics-might have come home, and if so, I could guess with what eagerness of joy the fatted calf would be killed in his honour. But no; Mrs Dayrell could never have kept back news so all-important to her and hers: her kind letter breathed no maternal exultation, but rather a quiet sadness. I did not expect, as I placed myself and my portmanteau in a cab, for conveyance to the Great Northern terminus, that I should see anything of my cousin, Francis

Dayrell. How fast I was whirled along the iron-way northwards, and how that rapid flight contrasted with the rough weather gaily faced, the hardships blithely borne, and the exuberant mirth and frolic of my old coaching-journeys as a boy! I reached the station at last, found a carriage in waiting, and was swiftly driven over the thin crust of hard-beaten snow to Dayrell Manor. The house was a fine specimen of its class. It consisted of stone sufficient to have built a cathedral, much weather-stained and moss-grown. It had been begun just before the Elizabethan style came in, and the architect had but partially adapted the structure to the new fashion; hence it had real towers as well as turrets, and a great hall and gallery, as well as gables and fantastic porches. I never saw finer elms than those of the park, nor bigger sycamores and pines, nor so venerable and clamorous a colony of respected rooks. But with all these objects I had been familiar long ago. Somehow, the grand old house looked much more dismal, rising brown and gaunt above the snow, than I had ever seen it look before, and yet I had often been a visitor there in the merry Christmas-time. Perhaps the place was unaltered, and the change was in the eyes that looked upon it. My aunt and cousins received me with their accustomed kindness. There was the usual burst of questions, reminiscences, and remarks, with which we generally hail a guest who was at one time on very intimate terms, but has been long absent; and then came the reaction.

I could not but observe, when the first pause in the conversation allowed me to look about me, that Mrs Dayrell was careworn and depressed, and that the girls were by no means so light of spirit as was the case three years ago. It was with some awkwardness that I ventured to mention Frank. Had they heard from him lately?' The question was put in a careless tone, as if the reply to it were the merest matter of course, but I suspected that no tidings had been learned of the truant. My aunt looked wistfully at me for a moment, put her handkerchief to her eyes, and broke into a sob. Good gracious!' I exclaimed, looking to my cousins, I hope there has been no bad news?" Caroline Dayrell said: 'No; no bad news. Indeed, we have not heard, but we have written, and expect a letter every day.' But the fond sister's voice quivered as she spoke, and she left the room abruptly, no doubt to hide her tears. Helen, the elder and prouder of the two, had more self-control; it was from her that I learned what steps had been taken towards tracing the wanderer. Mrs Dayrell, despairing of getting any reply to the many letters she had addressed to her son, and which, owing to his eccentric and devious course through Europe, had never reached him, had endeavoured to track him by other means. Bankers, consuls, secretaries of legation, had been applied to in turn, at all the great centres and startingpoints of continental travel, in the hope of discovering Francis Dayrell through his passport or letters of credit, but had all failed to throw much light upon Frank's movements. If, here and there, a trifling clue had been afforded, it was very soon utterly effaced. There was even reason to suppose that Frank had purchased or otherwise obtained a foreign passport, and was travelling under a borrowed name and nationality, the better, perhaps, to shun observation or comment. He had drawn a thousand pounds out of his agent's hands before starting: and it was ascertained that he had converted this large sum into foreign gold and notes. He had not demanded a fresh supply since his departure, though the agent held considerable amounts in trust for him. Frank, I should observe, although not yet the master of Dayrell Manor, which was unentailed, and had been left to his mother for life, was wholly independent as to his pecuniary means. He had inherited a good deal of funded property, and large

accumulations of rent. He had never been extravagant to any great degree; and with his retired habits, the sum he had taken with him might last for a long period.

It seemed that the family at Dayrell Manor, growing daily more and more sick with hope deferred, had cherished great ideas as to what 'Cousin William's' worldly knowledge and tact might effect. The poor girls in especial seemed to think that a lawyer, even a sucking lawyer, could do anything. It went to my heart to disappoint them; but what could I do? The few things I was able to suggest had already been essayed in vain, or there was some good reason against their efficacy. An advertisement in the Times, in Galignani, in the chief foreign papers? Futile hope! Headstrong, fastidious Frank Dayrell was not to be beckoned back in so primitive a fashion. A detective to be sent in pursuit? Such a course was more likely to irritate than to soothe and reclaim; Frank was lord of his own goings and comings, and there were no lettres-de-cachet obtainable now a days, even in Russia. But perhaps a painstaking person, who was expert in spy-work, could discover the young man's address, at anyrate, and then my aunt could write 'Write! I would do more than write! I would hurry there, and beg him, oh, beg him so hard to return to those that love him, that if his heart were stone, he could not refuse me. Perhaps when he saw his old mother on her knees and I would kneel-to my boy-to beg him to love me.' Thus spoke the proud mother, quite humbled now, poor thing, by grief and carking care. Her voice was broken by sobs, her hair was getting quite gray-hair that had been glossy and dark three years ago; she looked quite old and broken. I thought to myself, as the girls pressed about their mother's chair to try and comfort her by caresses and fond whispers of endearment, that if the rover could have had one glimpse of the home he had abandoned, he would have come back an altered man. I am sure he would. Frank's heart was by no means a hard one. Those are not always the most selfish or insensible persons who cause bitter pain to those who love them. I believe it was because Frank felt so much what just blame attached to his careless, wasted life, that he winced so nervously under the injudicious reproaches of his kindred. He took into his warped, clever head, that mother and sisters, along with that shadowy impersonation the world, were in league against him. Mankind, or at least Mrs Grundy, had conspired to vilify and blight Francis Dayrell, and his own flesh and blood had shared in the plot to harass and torment him. They would not even, he complained, let him dream away his life in peace. He molested nobody, but he was exposed to continual vexation. I read his last letters; they were steeped in morbid feeling, full of cynicism, and unhealthy sentiment, and sneers. yet, every now and then, would break out, even in those bitter letters, some flash of the man's true spirit, some glimpse of his kindly heart. He would say something that shewed an innate sympathy with what is good, and pure, and bright-with selfdevotion, and genial industry, and those gallant workers for a world who bear the brunt and heat of the day. Or, at other times, would drop out, as if unconsciously, some passionate word of tenderness, some sign of the love for those at home not yet dead in him words that were balm to the poor mother's anguished heart, on many a sleepless night of weeping and vigil.

And

It was but a sad evening that we spent in the noble old room that had rung with so much merriment and so many cheery voices of young and aged, on jocund Christmas nights in the blithesome past. Now, all was altered. There was no pleasant assemblage of guests, no houseful of visitors. The

conversation flagged, and had ghastly gaps in it, when the ticking of the clock on the mantel-piece was distinctly heard. There was snow without, as of old, but no longer the same joyous spirits within. There was a great wood-fire, however, burning, and as the seasoned logs sent forth a broad ruddy glow, the scarlet holly-berries, set here and there in honour of Christmas, seemed to wink and glitter reproachfully at the melancholy group round the hearth. We spoke but little, after the first confidences and the almost useless consultation. We gazed a good deal at the fire, at its heaps of red-hot embers, bright as carbuncles, at the fringe of white feathery ashes, the fiery caverns, the burning logs, and their curling spirals of flame, and the yet unkindled wood. The blood-red light flashed lurid up the cavernous mouth of the old-fashioned chimney, the chimney at which I had marvelled as a boy fresh from sea-coal and small grates, but I had never seen it under circumstances so saddening. I can guess what the thoughts of my aunt and cousins were; they were doubtless busy with the time when Frank was the life and soul of a gay party in that very room, not so long ago. As for me, I was fairly haunted by the ghosts of dead pleasures. How slowly the evening went! The time came at last to go to bed. I felt as if the old butler, in bringing the flat candles and that old-world tray of wine and water, and other things, had done me a personal favour. Where are you going to put me, Spice?' I asked in some surprise, as the old servitor turned to the left instead of the right, after solemnly conducting me to the top of the broad staircase of polished oak. I had no particular 'own room' at Dayrell Manor. I had never before been there, except at Christmas or in early autumn, or at anyrate during a late midsummer holiday. The house had always been crammed with gay company; and a youngster like myself, hardy of constitution, and a kinsman to boot, had naturally been quartered in very lofty lodgings indeed. I had slept in attics, turret-rooms, and so forth, until to stop on the first floor instead of continuing to mount, seemed to me a remarkable proceeding. I had dressed for dinner, to be sure, but it had been in a little room with a small hot fire, which had been a study in the days of my Uncle Dayrell. So I asked Spice, with some astonishment, why he turned to the left, as he guided me along with his flaring candle and his respectable squeaking shoes.

6

Green room, sir-Master William. Beg your pardon, Mr Miles, and you a counsellor now!' Spice had called me Master William since I was but a tiny guest indeed, but now he evidently feared he had affronted the Templar's dignity. 'Master William, as long and as often as you please,' said I; it reminds me of old days. But the green room? Í thought it was seldom or never used.'

Spice replied, with a certain tremor in his kind old voice, that it was 'Master Frank's room.'

Master Frank had taken a curious fancy to this chamber a year before he went away; and Mrs Dayrell had ordered that the room should be prepared for my reception on the occasion of my visit, although everything it contained had hitherto been kept, with an almost religious care, in precisely the same condition under which the missing heir remembered it. There was a good fire burning in the green room, not a coal-fire, for the introduction of a grate into a chamber so ancient and characteristic would have been held as a heresy, but a blazing fire of wood. The room itself was very large and low, the walls were panelled with oak almost as black as ebony, and the hangings were of well-preserved tapestry on a green ground, which gave its name to the room. Two great beams of oak crossed the ceiling; the mantelpiece was of the same dark wood, carved in the grotesque taste, and with the patient minuteness of days long gone. There was a tradition-which I do not in the least believe to the effect that Queen