half relented in his favour but I thought of Lord Glenalbert, I thought of that parting scene and I said, "I will not deliver this note Mr. Lyndham ;" as I spoke I threw it on the pavement; the door opened, and I entered to weep plenteously. Mrs. Sidney, however, soon sent for me; and being closely questioned by her as to my morning's success, I frankly confessed my delinquency; and said, in excuse, that having tossed over and over the merchandise, I had been forced to purchase several articles at usurious prices, in requital of the trouble I had given.

Mrs. Sidney appeared greatly annoyed, and she said, "I was the fool to think of sending you; Dorothy, I wish you would bear in mind the notable aphorism, that 'most persons are slaves because they cannot say the monosyllable no;' but I wish, also, they would send the things—I conclude they are good of their kind." Por my own part, I secretly dreaded their arrival, for I thought they would scarcely stand the test of a well lighted apartment. I afterwards found I might have saved my credit; the packages were never fated to arrive; Fleeceall and Co's. goods (as we learned upon inquiry) having been seized that very afternoon, and my ill-fated mission serves only to point a moral, or adorn a tale, being an abiding caution to all bargain-loving housewives.

CHAPTER XVII.

See where she stands! a mortal shape indeed,

With love, and life, and light, and deity,
And motion, which may change, but cannot die;
An image of some bright eternity;

A shadow of some golden dream;

A metaphor of spring, and youth, and beauty.

"L'amant que j'adore,
Prêt a me quitter

D'un instant encore

Voudrait profiter

Félicité vaine!

Qu'on ne peut saisir,

Trop près de la peine

Pour être un plaisir.

SHELLEY.

MADAME D'HOUDETOT.

Ir was, I think, about a week after my interview with Mr. Lyndham, an interview I had scrupulously kept secret from Viola, that Mrs. Sidney received the following letter from Mr. Strickland, the gentleman under whose fostering care, Dick Sidney was placed.

"I deem it a duty incumbent on one, holding, as I do, the onerous and responsible situation of head master at a preparatory school, to inform you that Master Sidney, having, on his arrival at Holly Lodge, evinced manifest symptoms of a certain titillation in the bronchia, commonly called a cough, has, I grieve to say, by divers flagrant and glaring acts of imprudence, exaggerated the said malady, and is, at this present moment undergoing the durance vile of confinement to his bed; a measure I had recourse to at the instigation of our Esculapius, who avouches that his young patient has certain febrile indications arising from the catarrhal complaint.

"In conclusion, Madam, I have the satisfaction of assuring you that Master Sidney bears his incarceration with far greater philosophy than I could have expected; having stipulated only, that he should be plentifully supplied with currant jelly; a request, with which I have not failed to comply, being certified from experience, that the 'argumentum ad gulam,' is always most efficacious in these cases.

"And, finally, entreating that you will not suffer your maternal fears to be too easily excited, "Permit me to subscribe myself,

"Your grateful and obedient servant,

"J. VICESIMUS STRICKLAND."

Mrs. Sidney, however, did suffer her maternal fears to be very much excited, and it required all Mr. Sidney's eloquence to prevent her setting off that very evening to visit her son; at length she yielded, and the carriage was ordered for an early hour the ensuing morning. Holly Lodge was situated in the neighbourhood of Twickenham, and as Miss Sharpe had a sister living at Richmond, it was settled that she should he dropped en route, whilst Margaret and Lucy were to accompany their mother for the benefit of the country air.

Viola and I were accordingly left alone on the morning in question; we repaired as usual to her own light, elegant apartment. But she, who was wont to be so actively employed; whose powerful mind was ever grasping at some new acquirement; she to whose intellectual being, occupation was once as necessary as air and food to her animal existence, now sat listlessly, swaying herself to and fro in melancholy abstraction, her hands drooping on either side, her eyes wandering with purposeless regard, as though they knew not where to fix. It saddened me to look at her.

"Dear Viola," I at length said, "will you not read to me?"

"O yes, I'll read," she answered, vacantly; "I have done nothing else all last night, and the night before, and the night before that too; I do not

I think shall ever do aught else but read this, this. She drew a letter from the folds of her dress; I deemed it was that same one of which she had spoken to Lord Glenalbert; and I said:

"Viola, I am disappointed! from you at least I expected far other and better things; I did think that you would have battled and struggled with this vain yet opposing weakness; and by a life of active piety, of strenuous exertion, and never failing vigilance, I hoped that you might redeem your past errors, and regain the love and good opinion of your parents, which, you must be aware, you have by your conduct forfeited; above all, I trusted that you would once more learn to respect yourself."

Viola and I had indeed changed characters; she, who used to lead all around her, and myself in especial,-she, who I once fondly thought could do no wrong, now listened in silence to my upbraidings, and was humbled and abashed as a chidden child. She drooped her eyes whilst the tears trembled on their long lashes; but hastily she dashed them away ere they fell down her colourless cheek, and raising her head, she said, "I could be all that you say, Dorothy, I would be all that you describe, if I might but see him once again; once before he leaves England for years, perhaps for ever. Small prospect indeed have we of ever meeting upon earth