smartish girl, with lively black eyes, and pouting lips, and so forth, and a spanking figure, with good action to boot, and might get a stride or two before Grace in the Creole's fancy; those West Indians don't think as we do."

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"St. Kitts was Grace's champion," replied Raby.

"The devil he was!" ejaculated the Baronet. Why this beats cock-fighting! They say, Kate, there's no accounting for tastes, and in fancy matters I believe like does not always pair with like; but think of Raby here, bookish and poetical and sentimental, and so forth, and that always rides a pony or a galloway, standing up for a slapping, bouncing, high-couraged girl, that looks only halfbroke, like Miss Twigg."

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My dear aunt," said Raby, eagerly, "pray think of no such incongruity. It was Ringwood who found a goddess at the Hive, and set her on a pedestal above Grace and her three namesakes."

The speaker intended no wound; but his words pierced Sir Mark with the pang of a gaunch from a wild boar, or a gore from a stag at bay. His first impulse was towards the checkstring

and the carriage window, that he might call the refractory admirer to task; but the presence of his sister put him in mind of her admonition, and he remained passive. In the meantime it gave him some consolation to reflect whither they were going, and on the irresistible attractions of his first favourite, whose portrait his imagination painted in the most glowing colours; and then he amused himself in bedaubing and disfiguring the fulllength he had lately drawn of Miss Twigg, till, like the ideal lady in the Rivals, “she had a hump on each shoulder, a skin like a mummy, a beard like a Jew, was as crooked as a crescent, and rolled her one eye like the bull in Cox's museum." then mentally held up the two pictures for comparison, in the very spirit of Hamlet, and wondered utterly how his son and heir could hesitate with such a choice. "It's impossible, I know," he said to himself, "to put old heads on young shoulders, but the head of a two-year old ought to know which to choose. Why there's young Twigg would jump at Grace, for I saw him throwing the eyes of a whole flock of sheep at her; and so

He

would Raby or St. Kitts; but Ringwood, though he has father's consent and everything, turns away from her, confound him, like musty hay."

There is a saying, which imputes to dogs in general a disposition to fall on and bite one that is bitten; and Sir Mark seemed placed in the very situation of the unfortunate cur. In glancing occasionally through the carriage window, his eye had observed some object that the Creole carried before him on the saddle, and which he at length made out to be a beautiful small spaniel of the Blenheim breed. His curiosity being excited, he took an opportunity of letting down the window and asking St. Kitts where the little animal was going, and he was informed that it was destined for a present to Grace Rivers. The answer made Raby smile; but it gave a fresh pang to the Baronet, and reflecting that Ringwood carried no spaniels to Hawksley, he pulled up the window again, with a suddenness that threatened to demolish the glass.

To Mrs. Hamilton, who had been the depository of her brother's matrimonial schemes, his movements

were no mystery; but she was restrained by the presence of Raby, and did not venture on any remark. The Baronet was not in a humour for talking, and Raby was soon occupied in speculations of his own; so that the three insides travelled on to their destination as mute as three strange reserved English passengers by a mail, who have never met before and may never meet again, and besides have locked up their tongues in their travelling-bags, which are in the hind-boot.

CHAPTER V.

HOBBINOL.-Diggon Davie, I bid her good day;
Or Diggon her is, or I mis-say.

DIGGON. Her was her while it was daylight,

But now her is a most wretched wight;
For day that was is wightly past,

And now at last the dirk night doth haste.

SPENSER'S SHEPHERD'S CALENDAR.

"For my part I know not whether is best, to live thus or die out of hand; my soul chooseth strangling rather than life, and the grave is more easy for me than this dungeon."

CHRISTIAN, IN THE CASTLE OF DESPAIR.

Her eyes are wild, her head is bare,

The sun has burnt her coal black hair;

Her eyebrows have a rusty stain,

And she came far from over the main.-WORDSWORTH.

THE representative of justice, as does not always happen with Justice herself, was at home to those who enquired for him. He had just begun to lunch in company with Grace; and by way of