festly rejected his suit, and driven him from
Harpsden Hall, without even deigning to con-
sult her upon the subject.

One immediate object now occupied all her attention, and every faculty was put in requisi tion for its satisfactory accomplishment. It was absolutely necessary to return some appropriate answer to this most touching appeal; to undeceive him as to the real state of her affec tions; to encourage him to continue this delightful mode of communication which might ultimately enable them to triumph over the malice of all their enemies, and ensure that ecstatic ineffable felicity-the union of sympathizing hearts. It was a circumstance not less mortifying to her than inexplicable, considering the resemblance which she flattered herself with possessing, in other respects, to the most approved heroines of romance, that the Gods had not made her poetical: after repeated efforts she had been compelled to abandon every hope of replying to him in his own strain, and as she held it essential that the response should at all events be in verse, she betook herself to her

stores of French in order to make some appropriate selection for the purpose. This she was not long in finding, and the next difficulty was as to the most original, ingenious, and captivating mode of evincing her superior taste in the manner of its conveyance, a question of not very easy solution. She recollected, however,

that by great good luck she had preserved a little white wreath of the Immortelle or ever

lasting flower given to her by her French governess, to which she attached the following appropriate device, cut out of gold paper with great neatness, "LIKE MY LOVE."

Lest this most original and happy conceit should not be deemed sufficiently explicit, she wrote upon a sheet of valentine paper, stamped round with hearts, darts, and Cupids, these lines:

"Que veux tu que je te donne,
Pour bouquet en ce moment?
Si j'avois une couronne,

Je t'en ferois le present.

Mon embarras est extrême,
Car je ne possede rien;
Et t'offir un cœur qui t'aime,
C'est te redonner ton bien."

Towards the close of evening the garland and the sheet of paper were carefully deposited upon the bench in the little arbour; and Adeline, planting herself at a window which com manded the spot, fixed her eye upon the shrine which contained her offering with as intense an interest as a fowler watches his decoy bird, or the trap which he has so cunningly contrived to secure his prey.

Night, however, began to collect her shades around the house and plantations, and to sober down into a darker hue the light that had been gleaming over the little lake, without her piercing glance having been rewarded by the sight of anything in the shape of her lover. At length a sound, as of a flute, met her delighted ear, and not doubting that it was the signal of her Arcadius, although she could discover nothing moving upon the premises, she Iwaved a white pocket handkerchief from the window as a recognition of her having heard the sound, in case he should have come disguised as a minstrel to serenade her. At the same moment she saw a man steal from a clump

of trees, approach near to the house, and again conceal himself. After having waited a little while in anxious expectation of hearing the tinkling prelude of a guitar, but without any interruption of the silence, it occurred to her that Reuben had probably some important communication to make to her, and was waiting a safe opportunity of imparting it without being overheard by any of the family.

Although Juliet thought fit to carry on her secret colloquies with her lover from a balcony on the first floor, and she would have wished as nearly as possible to have enacted the same scene in a similar manner with her own Arcadius, yet as he seemed to decline this mode of parley, and she could not deny that a ground floor was much more convenient for the purpose, she descended to the housekeeper's room, which was upon a level with the lawn, and, softly opening the window, looked anxiously out. Before she could withdraw her head, she felt herself suddenly and rudely embraced by a powerful arm, while repeated kisses were implanted upon her face from a mouth smelling strongly, and in about

equal proportions, of beer, Nantz, and tobacco. As she screamed and struggled to extricate herself, the hoarse voice of a half-drunken man exclaimed, "'Swounds! Gibson, what are you squeaking about? That affair with Sally of the

Cricketers is quite done with, and

you

and I are

all one as married, you know." Adeline's additional struggles at these words enabling her to make her escape, she ran shrieking up stairs; and the ravisher of the kisses, finding he was mistaken in his mistress, so far imitated her example as to take to his heels with as much speed as his intoxication would allow.

This energetic and unceremonious love-maker was no other than Sir Carroll Crockatt's groom, who was in the habit of occasional amorous interviews with Gibson the maid, at the Housekeeper's window, and of announcing his presence by blowing two or three notes upon a sixpenny pipe. Having been rather too free in his potations on the night in question, he was neither able to distinguish very accurately the features of his mistress, nor disposed to be par ticularly refined and squeamish in the expression