of his attachment. Adeline's screams, however, had so far brought him to his senses, that he reeled off the premises in that sort of serpentine line usually assumed by gentlemen and grooms in his circumstances, and which was quite direct enough for his purposes, since it conducted him, to use his own phraseology, "right strait back again to the Half-moon, to finish t'other pint with Jem Mumford."

CHAPTER II.

"But he was foule, ill-favoured, and grim,
Under his eyebrows looking still ascaunce;
And ever as Dissemblance laught on him,
He lower'd on her with dangerous eye-glance;
Showing his nature in his countenance."

SPENSER.

HAD Adeline been stirring with the lark next morning, she might have enjoyed the sa tisfaction of which she was so discourteously deprived on the preceding evening; for Reuben, in the restlessness of his mind, left his bed at daybreak, to wander around the residence of her who had occupied his thoughts during great part of the night. On visiting the arbour to see whether his little poetical impromptu were withdrawn, he pounced upon the garland and inscription with a flutter of the heart, and

intensity of expectation, only to be equalled by his disappointment when he ascertained its origin. The hand-writing, the foreign language, but above all, the fantastical device, and the fulsome sentiments of the address, were all evidently Adeline's; and though this discovery gave him some clue to Helen's allusions in their interview, he was still utterly at a loss to know how her sister could have any claims upon one who had not only studiously abstained from every mention of love, but had conducted himself towards her, in all their late intercourse, with an intentional distance and reserve. however, he had most unaccountably awakened this feeling, it was manifestly his duty to avoid everything that might be misconstrued into its encouragement:-as it was obvious, that the purport of his lines had been completely mistaken, and presumed to be addressed to one sister when they were meant for another, he felt the propriety of discontinuing altogether his customary rambles about the house.

Since,

The desire of making a voyage to India for the purpose of exploring the fate of his lost

his

parents, a wish which had always been deeply rooted in his soul, which had been held in abeyance, though never eradicated, during struggles for the preservation of his life, and the absorbing influence of his passion for Helen, now revived with a redoubled force, and was embraced with all the eagerness of a sanguine temperament. He was now nearly of age, fortune, limited as it might be, was quite competent to his projected purpose, and he felt himself at the same time called to India by the awakened voice of filial duty; and anxious to escape from a country which the disappointment of all his public hopes, and the peremptory rejection of his suit by Helen, had rendered a cheerless and unattractive residence. Prompt, not to say hasty, in all his resolutions, he sought an immediate interview with his uncle; stated his intentions, and requested his counsel as to the most advisable mode of proceeding, and the preliminary measures that it might be necessary to adopt.

"Preliminary

measures!" exclaimed Gold

ingham, bringing his large eyes close to his

nephew, and staring with astonishment. "Why, my poor boy, the most appropriate would be to get your head shaved, and provide yourself with a strait-waistcoat; for a more madbrained project than this, a more idle wildgoose chase never entered into a human noddle. What! do you mean to mount upon a Rhinoceros, like my Lord Keeper Guilford, or across a broomstick like a witch, and so ride to the moon, or set yourself on horseback like a beggar, and ride to Adod! Reuben, you remind me of your poor father, for he had always some wild scheme in his pate. I used to tell him that he caught them from the crazy poets that he sometimes had to dine with him; the three Ds, as he called them, Dryden, Davenant, and Durfey, who always turned his head for a week afterwards, and set him upon scribbling bad poetry when he ought to have been posting his ledger, or writing letters to his correspondents in India.”

I came not to hear my father ridiculed," said Reuben, gravely, "but to intreat—”

Right boy, right; we can't all be shrewd,