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yonder third shelf you'll find some Indian directories. Hand me three down, embracing the period named, and those which have preceded and followed it. One question we'll settle without leaving the room."

The books were handed by Brian to the dwarf, and the latter mounted his spectacles, and commenced a careful research. Alas! neither on the strength of the Madras army, nor in the annual obituary was the defunct commander to be found. Another investigation was made, and by a fresh reference to an army-list, and by some unfortunate mistake of the compiler, among the Companions of the Bath Colonel Bouverie's name had been omitted!

"I have not," said the little gentleman, laying down the book and quietly removing his spectacles, "an official return of the Horse Marines; and, if the departed gentleman was not on the muster-roll of that corps, you may probably find him on the half-pay list of Utopia. But no more of dead C.B.s. You know the meaning of the Scotch phrase tocher ?"

I bowed in the affirmative.

"I should like to know what position your Cupid has assumed touching that requisite for housekeeping, money, on the present occasion.

Has he ta'en his stand

Upon a widow's jointured land ?'

or are the sinews of war invested in the Three per Cents?-or more probably, in East Indian Securities?"

"All the information I can give you on that head is, that Mrs. Bouverie is handsomely dowered; but I regret to say on her ac count, for it has cost her both inconvenience and annoyance,-her property has been thrown into Chancery, and—”

The little gentleman in the brimstone slippers burst into an uproarious laugh,-the monkey chattered,-the parrot screamed. "Silence, pretty ones!-No wonder you laugh as I do;"—and again the dwarf indulged in a most unearthly cachinnation—" Ha! ha! ha! Mr. Francis Elliott, I cannot but congratulate you the widow of a Colonel and a C.B. who is non est inventus' in the armylist!-Well, there's one comfort for you,-though you can't make out the defunct commander, you know where to find the lady's effects, and, like an Irish fortune, it is so well secured, that nobody can get at it. How is your head, Frank? Very sorry to put that question a year after you are married." Then turning to Brian, the little man anxiously inquired, "Whether his unfortunate companion," meaning me, was generally quiet and collected ?" I lost all temper, sprang from my chair, and seized my hat. "I shall not remain to hear an estimable woman coarsely maligned, and myself treated as a lunatic!" I exclaimed.

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'Well, in charity let us admit that there is not a tile off your upper story, as they say in the north,-and only write you down a fool. You won't marry for eight-and-forty hours I hope?" "Certainly not. Monday is the day appointed."

"Will you favour me to-morrow with an introduction to the bride that is to be?"

"With great pleasure, were it only to convince you how undeservedly you have traduced her."

"Well, be it so,” returned the little man; "and when I ascertain the extent of my error in opinion, rest assured the atonement I shall make the Colonel's relict shall be commensurate with the offence. At two o'clock to-morrow I shall visit you. Take up your notecase; and I trust the next week's account current will be more to my satisfaction when I overlook it than the present is. And nowbe off. To-morrow -two o'clock-and then for an interview with a lady in a pleasant predicament-in love and Chancery !"

"Did you ever listen to such a foul-tongued fragment of humanity?" I exclaimed, as the cabman closed the door of the vehicle.

"He certainly was rather hard upon the pretty widow. But did it not strike yourself as very strange, that her husband's name was neither to be found in the Indian army-list nor among the Companions of the Bath?" returned Brian.

"Certainly it does seem singular; but it may be easily explained away, after all. To-night, when I prepare my dear Emily for an interview with the little fellow, I shall mention the circumstance to her."

"What hour do you visit her?"

"At eight precisely. And, by the way, we cannot kill time to more advantage than by a run down the river, and a dinner at Greenwich."

Brian gave a free assent,—the cab was turned in a different direction, and we embarked at London bridge.

"Did yellow-slippers make one of the party, can you guess how he would be engaged at present?"

"Not I, faith," returned the Irishman.

"In endeavouring to make out over which of the arches of the bridge my great-grandfather's head had been exhibited in the fortyfive.""

It was precisely what the dwarf would do, and we both laughed heartily at the fancy.

The day was pleasantly passed, and we returned in proper time to enable me to pay my duty to my mistress, and introduce my friend Brian to Mrs. Elliott elect. On the landing-place I encountered the buxom hostess; and, while Brian went to his own room, I claimed from her the promised information.

"You shall have it; but I am busy now. Wait till to-morrow,— and in the meantime neither name a day nor put up the banns. After five minutes' conversation in the morning, St. Martin's is close at hand; and if you feel yourself still connubially inclined, why, the sooner housekeeping commences the better. Nevertheless, I have a shrewd suspicion that you will not put a plain gold ring upon the widow's finger, although you have placed a diamond on it."

And, laughing heartily, the jolly dame mounted the stairs, while I entered the drawing-room.

"Now, what the devil," said I, soliloquizing, "is the meaning of all this? Am I the happiest of the happy, or the greatest fool permitted to be at large? That cursed dwarf has excited strange suspicions, and the obese landlady rings to the same chime. These doubts are torturous, and this evening shall remove or end them."

"I made some alteration in the appearance of my outward man, as a lover should when about to wait upon his lady gay. Brian's toilet was speedily completed, and he joined me in the drawing

room.

It still wanted a quarter of an hour of the trysted time, and we sat down to discuss a little brandy and water, while I prepared my young companion for his introduction to one who with " Dian's snow" united the charms of a Calypso.

Enamoured gentlemen talk shocking nonsense, and to a general rule I formed no exception. Mrs. Bouverie's charms were sung and said with all the descriptive colouring which "youthful poets fancy when they love." Brian sighed as he listened patiently to my rhap sodies.

"There are, no doubt, many superior beauties to Susan Neville," said the young Irishman; "but, for warmth of heart and purity of principle, Susan against the world !"—and the last drop in his glass was reverently emptied in honour of his mistress.

"Curse on that whiskered quill-driver!" I exclaimed, looking across the street, and observing a male figure striding up and down the widow's drawing-room. "It is bad enough to place a lady's goods and chattels under the Great Seal, without sending a cursed solicitor every night to haunt the premises. But come along, Brian. My dear fellow, I know you will excuse me-don't stare at Mrs. Bouverie. She is so painfully sensitive, that I'll be hanged but at the Star and Garter a brace of puppies nearly rendered her hysteri cal. Come along-and now for innocence and beauty!"

We crossed the street, knocked at the hall-door, and were immediately admitted. The maid-of-all-work smiled-it was the smile congratulatory I fancied at the time; but afterwards I had reason to change my opinion.

"Is Mrs. Bouverie at home?"

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Oh, yes," was the reply of the soubrette.

"The lawyer with her, as usual?" I asked carelessly.

"I really do not know whether the gentleman is a lawyer; but he is with her, as usual."

I little guessed at the time that the confounded spider-brusher was laughing at me in her sleeve; and faith! she had sufficient

reason.

We ascended the stairs. I opened the door, and entered the drawing-room to present a couple of new acquaintances to the young Milesian. It was the gravest mistake made by any member of the family, since my great-grandfather contrived to part with his head. The moment my figure filled the doorway, Mrs. Bouverie I suppose prayed that it would be lengthened, and, advancing to receive her affianced lord, murmured,

"Dear, dear Francis, wel-"

There is a fine passage in one of Sheridan's plays, in which death cuts suddenly the speaker's thread, and abbreviates the sentence he was delivering :-Brian's entré on Mrs. Bouverie produced a similar effect; for, with a shriek, she fled back to the opposite side of the apartment. What the devil meaned this? I looked at Brian, and he was pale as old Priam, when a friend kindly informed him he was regularly burnt out, and no insurance. Had the Chancellor pronounced the lawyer in contempt, he could not have exhibited more desperate alarm. God help me! I looked from one to another for half a mi nute, wondering what would follow. Brian first recovered self-pos session-over his pale cheek a ruddy flush glowed to the very brow, and, bursting past me, he addressed the intended Mrs. Elliott, and in terms not very complimentary to her elected lord.

"Infamous woman! burden ye still the earth?"

"Wretch!—you slandered me once-would you again blast my reputation ?"

"I won't waste words upon thee!-thou foulest thing in form of woman! But for that villainous paramour-that assassin of my friend-by heaven! were I to be imprisoned years for breaking his bones, I'll qualify him for an hospital!" And Brian flung the lady of my love aside, and that too with as scanty ceremony as if she had been a drunken fish-wife.

His threat was idle: the Chancery solicitor had slipped into the lady's chamber at the first alarm, and bolted the door. Foiled in his rage for vengeance, Brian, with one Herculean spurn of his foot, dashed in the door; but, fortunately for himself, the criminal had escaped. A second door opened on the lobby from my lady's chamber, and through that convenient means of egress the Chancery solicitor had levanted.

The disappointment infuriated the young Irishman. A Malay preparing to run the muck could scarcely have been in higher excitement; and, though an undisputed descendant of as stout a Border family as ever "drove prey from Cumberland,” d—n me if I would have been a Chancery solicitor within arm's-length of Mr. Brian O'Linn for a five-pound note!

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Brian, in the devil's name, what means this?" I exclaimed.

My question was unheeded and unanswered; for, failing to overtake him who appeared the object of his unmitigable fury, he leisurely poured out the phials of his wrath on the devoted head of her who on Monday next was to have blessed me with her hand, and favoured me with her Chancery expectations into the bargain. After her first feeble effort to show fight, the lady struck her colours, and, according to the Hibernian metaphor, like a bull in a china-shop, Brian had everything his own way; and, while he fulminated phrases quite inapplicable to ladies who bore such fair reputations as Penelope and Lucretia, Mrs. Bouverie buried her head among the cushions of the sofa and played the insensible.

"Leave this contaminated house!" exclaimed Brian, catching my arm-and pushing me literally down stairs, he opened the streetdoor, and led me out, perfectly unresisting and marvellously amazed.

Before we reached the Strand the mystery was unfolded. In Mrs. Bouverie, the relict of the departed commander, Brian had at a glance recognised his old acquaintance, Mrs. Montague; and Captain Darnley, by whose hand William St. George had prematurely fallen, had, it would appear, turned his sabre into a pen, and commenced business as a solicitor.

Of the parties concerned I cannot pretend to say who slept that night. Brian had the best chance, certainly. I never closed an eye; and, on coming down to breakfast, from the morning's information I received, the lady in the opposite house must have been exceedingly busy while "all the world were sleeping;" for she had managed to levant with her traps, save the canary,—that unhappy bird being kindly left by Mrs. Bouverie to assuage with his melody the landlady's grief for the loss of a valuable lodger, or, as an equivalent for a quarter's rent.

RAILWAY DACTYLS.

BY A TRAVELLER.

HERE we go off on the "London and Birmingham,"
Bidding adieu to the foggy metropolis!

Staying at home with the dumps, is confirming 'em ;-
Motion and mirth are a fillip to life.

Let us look out! Is there aught that is see-able?
Presto!-away!-what a vanishing spectacle!
Well! on the whole, it is vastly agreeable-
"Why, sir, perhaps it is all very well,"

Tricketty, tracketty, tricketty, tracketty!
"Barring the noise, and the smoke, and the smell."
Now, with the company pack'd in the carriages,
Strange is the medley of voluble utterings,—
Comings and goings, deceases and marriages,—
Oh, what a clatter of matters is there!
History, politics, letters, morality,

Heraldry, botany, chemistry, cookery,
Poetry, physic, the stars, and legality,-
All in a loud opposition of tongues!

Tricketty, tracketty, tricketty, tracketty!
Never mind that-it is good for the lungs.

"All that's remarkable, now, we may stir and see;
Free circulation-how huge are its benefits!”-
"Yet, sir, with all the improvement in currency,
Great is the dread of a run on the banks.”-
"Fight with America! Do but the folly see!
Since unto both, sir, belongs the same origin.'
"What's your opinion of Peel and his policy?"-
"What of the weather ?-and how is the wind ?”
Tricketty, tracketty, tricketty, tracketty!
"Oh! that that whistle were far off as Ind!"

On, like a hurricane! on, like a water-fall!

Steam away! scream away! hissing and spluttering! "Madam, beware lest your out-leaning daughter fall!”"Yes, sir, I will; but her life is insured.”.

"Cobden 's a-coming to mob and to rabble us!"

"Zounds! sir, my corn! Do ye think I'm of adamant?""Oh, what an appetite! Heliogabalus!

That little fellow will eat himself ill!”

Tricketty, tracketty, tricketty, tracketty! "When you're at home again, give him a pill."

Oh, Mr. Hudson! Macadam's extinguisher !

Men are as boys in the grasp of thy schoolery!
Those who love England can no better thing wish her
Than to have thee for her Ruler of Lines!
Praised as thy course is, to heighten the fame of it,
I'll give you a hint, without fee or expectancy :-
Write us a book-and let this be the name of it,

"Rail-ways and Snail-ways; or, Roads New and Old."
Tricketty, tracketty, tricketty, tracketty!
Won't such a volume in thousands be sold?

Here we go on again, every link of us!

Oh, what a chain! what a fly-away miracle!

Birds o' the firmament! what do ye think of us?
Minutes! be steady, as markers of miles!

Well! of new greatness we now have the germ in us!
But the collector, I see, coming hither is.

"Ladies and gentlemen-this is the terminus-
Ticket, sir! ticket, sir!-end of the line!"
Ricketty, racketty, ricketty, racketty!

"Friends of velocity! now let us dine !"

G. D.

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