baronet, he dinna ken the trigger fra the cock, or may be whether shot came fra stock or muzzle."

"Well," said Lord Ormsby, anxious to turn the conversation," he may be a very good master for all that. But I had almost lost my way you can tell me the best road back to Ormsby; these lanes are rather crooked." "Crooked! they be straight enuf presently. That Sir James he be going-(think o' that, Measter Arlingford!) to make a road through Delaval Park, straight as any line in his father's ledger!-aye, and as black too. A rail-road to carry coal, think of that. What wou'd my lady's grandfather, auid lord, as I used to follow when he rode hawking through whole range, have said when he went star-gazing, to have com❜d wid his nose int' coal-cart?"

"But, I dare say it isn't so," said Lord Ormsby, "it's a false report."

"Over true," said Dick, "it were but yesterday I was at our best wood-that you know, where Mr. Scribbleton, my lord's secretary, peppered your legs in the Battew. Well, I seed three chaps I did not ken, with poles and other sort of machines, I guessed might be new fangled poaching tools; so I went ti'd them, and they told I, they wair surveyors-come down fra Sir James to take elevation for line of railroad. They say, howsomdever, they mun wait for Parliament, and they canna do it without my lady's word; and she, Lord bless her! is auld lord's own

grand-daughter; she did a power of good last winter. I'll hear it fra her own lips before I believe— Oh, Mr. Augoostus, she might have had power as well as will to help, but for this chap-one canna make a silk purse out a sow's ear, as my auld woman says; but if you had"-Lord Ormsby did not wish this comparison to be pushed further, or indeed the appearance of interfering in Sir James's concerns; so, having learnt the best road from his old friend, he gave him something to remember him by, and gallopped home and there for the present we must leave him.

CHAPTER VI.

THE 16th of July, the day appointed for the departure of the Dorntons for the Continent, at length arrived. The intermediate time, since we left them, had been employed by Sir James in overloading himself with cumbrous comforts of every description, mostly patent portable articles-that is to say, they were just portable enough to stuff the carriages full of things otherwise unnecessary. And being ingenious patent contrivances, they had the peculiar recommendation for travelling, that they could only

be repaired by the inventor. However, by dint of a great deal of packing, they were at length all stowed; and Sir James and Lady Matilda took their places in the travelling chaise, and Mam'selle Felicie and her band-boxes in the Britchker behind.

Partial as I am to Lady Matilda, and anxious that the gentle reader should pass as much of his time as possible in her company, I still do not think it would be showing her to advantage if I were to induce him to travel bodkin between her and Sir James. I shall therefore rather propose to him, at least at starting, to take a place in the family-coach of the Hobsons, which, as stated in all the newspapers, left the Waterloo Hotel in Jermyn Street, two days previous to the last-mentioned departure.

We must, however, first introduce some of the male members of the family, who have not yet been mentioned. Mr. Hobson, himself, was usually called Old Hobson. Not that he really was older than many very personable people in the world; but his coat had a long waist and a short collar, he abominated trowsers, always wore long gaiters, never showed his shirt collar, and his wig was the meanest of scratches. Besides this, he never laughed, and seldom spoke; and when he did, always in a short testy manner. These marks of age, more infallibly than any number of years, constitute a man old in the nineteenth century.

People wondered why old Hobson was not a plea

santer old fellow. Every thing had gone well with him in the world: but the fact was, that the situation into which his success had brought him, produced that constant contradiction between his actions and his inclinations, which caused his surliConscious that he had made his own fortune, he was anxious to show the extent of his merit to the world, by spending it with spirit; and this desire was in a state of perpetual warfare with that penurious turn which had helped him to acquire his wealth.

ness.

This inward struggle was most apparent in trifles, as reminding him most forcibly of the little expenses he used to grudge in his hoarding days. He would at any time rather pay a coachmaker than a postboy. On great occasions too-such as the tour abroad-his anxiety to do the genteel thing laid him at the mercy of his family. His dislike to the journey only vented itself in grumbling. He never ventured to offer direct objection, much less formal op- position; but, as it was inevitable, comforted himself with doing his best to make it disagreeable.

Such was the amiable being who now took his seat in his new travelling-coach, with his wife by his side, and three daughters opposite to them. In the rumble behind, were squeezed those two most hapless animals when abad, a London footman and an English maid; the latter of whom, as she complained herself, "did all for the ladies."

The barouche-seat in front was occupied by two much more important personages; no other than our friend Jem's two elder brothers. The eldest, Tom, was what is called "in business;" that is, he spent all his time in amusing himself, whether as a pedestrian in poaching, as an equestrian in tumbling off broken-down hack hunters, or in the vehicular line, in tooling the Manchester Mail, the last stage into that town. But though he was thus always occupied out of doors, in bringing down birds, throwing down horses, or driving down passengers, he was, nevertheless, all this while "in the house;" that is, his name did duty on many a bale of goods in large letters-"Hobson, Rising, Hobson, & Co." while his person was following these more agrecable avocations.

It was with a view to settling Tom somewhere abroad, to increase the foreign connexions of the house, that his father consented to his accompanying them.

By his side sat a very different person-his brother, Mr. Valentine Hobson; christened Valentine, from his having been born on the 14th of February, the anniversary of that sapient saint. And, as it turned out, he had been appropriately enough named; for much of the mawkish nonsense, and sentimental stuff of his natal day, had instilled itself into his character. He was incurably addicted to scribbling amatory trash; which worst of all offences in old