resided in Pump Court, have to unfold worthy comparison with the revelations of her Willoughby,-whose wounds, both from the mus ket-balls and eye-balls of the Peninsula, were still smarting! Miss Falkingham felt that it was unnecessary to subscribe to a circulatinglibrary as long as she resided under the same roof with such a cousin. He was worth Mrs. Radcliffe, Lady Morgan, and the Subaltern jumbled into an empire of romance,tria juncta in uno!'

Every afternoon, in that delicious interval of social owl-light which succeeds the drawing of curtains, and precedes the arrival of candles, two arm-chairs were drawn closer towards the fire in Mrs. Manvers' drawing-room, and not very far from each other; and one might have supposed the abstainment from stirring the coals into a tell-tale blaze a delicate attention on the part of Agnes towards her soldier-cousin, (who could scarcely talk of Paquita without tears), or a delicate atten tion of the soldier-cousin towards Agnes (who could never listen without blushing.)

At that critical hour, the governor was seldom returned from the city, and the governor's lady apt to be closeted with her waiting-woman, preparatory to the business of the toilet; so that the young couple were left to the perils and dangers of their own hearts' most sweet society.' There was not much, perhaps, for the gentle youth, whose soul was still enwrapt in an atmosphere of guitars and orangeblossoms, till he was scarcely recallable to the prosaic vulgarities of London life, by even the shrill cry of the muffin-boy's All hot' passing under the window. But as to Agnes, as Don Juan sings,

'The precipice she stood on was immense!'

4

She had begun to see visions and dreams of the Peninsula. The little vine-trellised chamber in the dwelling of Fernan the assassin, lived a new life in her imagination; only that in this creation of girlish fancy the nurse-attendant on the pillow of her darling cousin, so far from being of a dusky complexion, was bright-faced as one of the transparent-tinted countesses of Lely or Sir Joshua,—and in place of raven tresses, the ringlets of the tender-hearted woman were as the unbleached flax.

Unhappy Agnes! Already she was so diligent a scholar of Sola, that she and her guitar had all but strummed her sober uncle into a nervous fever; while Aunt Manvers, assuring her that a chocolate diet was fatal to the complexion, could scarcely refrain from hinting that whenever she became Mrs. John Manvers and a bride, she would be fain to return to a humdrum breakfast of tea and toast. After all, the tender-hearted girl was only playing Paquita to the best of her capacity; and though in the sequel tempted to abbreviate her petticoats to a length only tolerable in the land of castanets and slender ankles, and odious in the sight of the neighbourhood of Hanover Square, as she was not an opera-dancer, no Bishop or Intendant des menus plaisirs was privileged to interfere.

But a crisis was approaching. Though the young lawyer was too busy with his suits to take heed of his suit, the young parson became only too painfully reminded by the multiplicity of weddings and christenings he was called upon to solemnize, that he was making little progress towards that holy estate of matrimony, essential to the bliss of his parsonic life and the excellence of his cowslip-wine; the only olive-branches and fruitful vine with which cousin Agnes and her fifteen thousand pounds seemed likely to be connected in the Manvers

family, being those adorning the Peninsular romance of the dangerous Willoughby. Whenever he hurried up to town, on pretence of a visit to Hatchard's, but in reality to burst anannounced into the drawingroom in George Street, when the fire was at its lowest, and the two arm-chairs at their closest, there was he sure to find them,-whispering to each other as low and tenderly as if there had been twenty people in the room, instead of only a blind spaniel on the hearth-rug, and a canary-bird with its head under its wing!

Rendered desperate by these discoveries, one day, when Willoughby had hurried from his father's port-wine to his mother's tea-table, leaving the governor and the young rector to talk over their tithes and consols together, John Manvers took occasion to signify to his parent that, within a mile from his parsonage, resided a certain half-pay captain, having seven daughters, extremely musical, and not particularly ill-looking; whereupon Thomas Manvers, senior, trembling for the prospects of his son, hastened to inquire whether the family in question contained a prettier girl than his charming cousin, Agnes?

'If she be not fair to me,

What care I how fair she be?'

was a very natural reply on the part of the slighted parson, and when, at length, further explanations convinced the indignant parent that Miss Falkingham was only fair to the only one of his sons in whom it was unfair to pretend to her smiles, he bade his injured John take patience and another glass of wine; and the following day obtained at the Horse Guards a signification to Lieutenant Manvers, of the 3d, that his leave could not be extended, and that he must forthwith join the depot at Portsmouth.

It happened that on the Saturday morning which brought the official HMS., sealed with his Majesty's arms, to the astonished lieutenant, Agnes had proceeded to the residence of her guardian at Hammersmith, for a visit of a few days, in the course of which she hoped to propitiate the old gentleman in favour of adopting heroes with eyes of tender blue, and an odour of Peninsular cigaritos lingering in their garments. And lo! when on the Tuesday following she returned, bringing with her a handsomely-bound copy of Mrs. Chapone's works, and an exceedingly heavy heart,-no Willoughby was to be seen!-In reply to her agitated inquiries, one of his younger sisters ingenuously informed her that 'brother Will was gone off by the Rocket!'-whereupon Miss Falkingham went off into a fit of hysterics!

Her first ejaculation, on returning to the use of her senses, was in the words of Professor Milman's Bianca,

"Not come to me,-not write to me,-not send to me!" when Hammersmith coaches depart every twenty minutes from the White Bear, Piccadilly, and the twopenny-post would have summoned me hither in time at least for an eternal farewell!'

Now the words 'eternal' and 'farewell' have a golden sound in the ears of sensitive seventeen. Yet, golden as they were, the iron had entered into the soul of Agnes! She saw that all was over for her in this most common-place of worlds. No more modinhas,—no more Camoens. With the prospect of a mitre before her eyes, she would never have become the wife of her parson-cousin,—nor, with the expectancy of the Woolsack, of the sober Templar. Rather, a thousand times rather become the fifth, but alas! far, very far from the last victim of Willoughby,-the DEAR-SLAYER!

MINOR BODKIN'S CURE FOR CONCEIT.

BY PHELIM O'TOOLE.

WITH AN ILLUSTRATION BY GEORGE CRUIKSHANK.

PEOPLE often wondered what possible motive the Commander-inchief for the time being could have had for sending the fifty-th to Connaught, and I fear it must now remain among those other political problems which in their turns have bothered the quidnuncs, few of which have afforded more food for speculation, or presented greater difficulties in their solution. As to the causes, however, why all this wonderment was exhibited on the occasion, these are peculiarly easy of development. The fifty-th were about as well fitted to undertake the care of a Connaught garrison as so many turkeys would have been. They were spooneys to a man-not a single redeeming character among them, from the fusty old colonel down to the little ensign of six weeks' standing. They were as genteel as so many milliners, exquisites from top to toe, and used pocket-handkerchiefs that would do for a draghunt. Matrimony was an abomination, the very mention of which would have excited more horror among them than the bursting of a bomb. Champagne was the only tipple they approved of; they would as soon have robbed a church as subscribe to the hounds; and as to venturing their delicate carcases in such a perilous operation as hunting it never was dreamed of among them. Only think what a precious consignment they were to send to Loughrea !

As soon as the doom of these unfortunates was irrevocably sealed, and it became past hoping for but that Loughrea was their portion, old Colonel Courtenay called his officers together into the messroom, and made the melancholy announcement. Their future quarters, he told them, lay in a place called Connaught, a part of the world generally shunned by all persons except individuals of the most doubtful and dangerous characters, and which, in wiser times than ours, had been regarded as a pis aller for hell. The aborigines were, he said, represented by those who knew them best as a peculiarly reprobate race. Silver forks, even in this enlightened age, seemed to be an utter novelty to the generality of them,-sobriety a virtue very little practised,-celibacy not at all held in as much honour as it ought, cheating at cards encouraged to a most alarming extent, -the small loan system universally adopted, and pistol-practice an absolute indispensable.

My children,' continued the worthy commander, after this detail, such being the society into which we are to be thrown for our sins, what steps ought we to take to resist the contamination which threatens us? To convert these helpless savages to the usages of the beau monde would be a hopeless task,-even to D'Orsay himself it would be a fruitless mission. Shall we, then, yield to circumstances, and bear with them?-tolerate them in our mess-room, and submit to be their guests?-haply endeavour to accommodate ourselves to their customs? or shall we rather, as best beseems us, reject all communion with their uncleanness, all fellowship, all association? I pause for a reply.'