green-house, and his helpmate at the same moment issued from the forcing-house, with a face looking perfectly ripe; the octagon summer-house sent forth a congregation like that of a dwarf chapel,the hermitage was left to the joint tenancy of Raby and Grace, and Flora descended from the roof of her temple, being tenderly assisted in her descent by the enamored Ringwood. By common consent the company all hastened towards the fallen marquee, and clearing away the canvas, they beheld the turf variously strewed,-exactly as if Time, that Edax Rerum,-had made a miscellaneous meal which had disagreed with him. In the middle the tables lay on their sides with their legs stretched out like dead horses, and the bruised covers, and knives and forks, were scattered about like battered helmets and masterless weapons after a skirmish of cavalry. The tablecloths were dappled with the purple blood of the grape; and the eatables and drinkables scattered, battered, spattered, shattered, and tattered, all round about, presented a spectacle equally whimsical and piteous. The following are but a few of the objects which the Hon. Mr. Danvers beheld when he looked on. Item. A huge cold round of beef, surrounded by the froth of a trifle, like an island "begirt with foam," with a pigeon perched on the top instead of a cormorant. Item. A large lobster, roosting on the branch of an epergne. Item. A roast duck, seemingly fast asleep, with a cream cheese for a mattress and a cucumber for a bolster. Item. Brawn, in an ample writing-paper ruff, well sprinkled with claret, reminding the spectator irresistibly of the neck of King Charles the First. Item. Tipsy-cake, appropriately under the table. Item. A puddle of cold punch, and a neat's tongue apparently licking it up. Item. A noble ham, brilliantly powdered with broken glass. Item. A boiled rabbit smothered in custard. Item. A shoal of prawns in an ocean of lemonade. Item. A very fine boiled turkey in a harlequin suit of lobster salad. Item. A ship of sugar-candy, high and dry on a fillet of veal. Item. A "hedge-hog" sitting on a "hen's nest." Vide Mrs. Glasse's Cookery for the confectionary devices. Item. "A floating island," as a new constellation, amongst "the moon and stars in jelly." See Mrs. Glasse again. Item. A large pound crab, sitting upright against a table, and nursing a chicken between its claws. Item. A collard eel, uncoiled, and threatening like a boa constrictor to swallow a fowl. Item. A Madeira pond, in a dish cover, with a duck drowned in it. Item. A pig's face, with a snout smelling at a bunch of artificial flowers. Item. A leg of lamb, as yellow as the leg of a boy at Christ's hospital, thanks to the mustard-pot. Item. A tongue all over "flummery." Item. An immense Macedoine of all the fruits of the season, jumbled together in jam, jelly, and cream. Such were some of the objects, interspersed with Serpentines of sherry, Peerless Pools of port, and New Rivers of Madeira, that saluted the eyes of the expectant guests, thus untimely reduced to the feast of reason and the flow of soul. The unfortunate hostess appeared ready to drop on the spot; but, according to Major Oakley's theory, she refrained from fainting among so many broken bottles; whilst Twigg stood with the very aspect and attitude of a baker's journeyman we once saw, just after a stumble which had pitched five rice puddings, two custard ditto, a gooseberry pie, a currant tart, and two dozen cheesecakes into a reservoir of M'Adams's broth from flints. The swamping of his collation on the ait in the Thames was a retail concern to this enormous wreck. His eyebrows worked, his eyes rolled, his lips quivered with inaudible curses, and his fingers twitched, as if eager to be doing something, but waiting for orders from the will; he was divided, in truth, between a dozen rival impulses, suggesting to him, all at once, to murder the cow, to thrash Pompey, to quarrel with his wife, to disinherit his son, to discharge the cooks, to order everybody's carriage, to send Matilda back to boarding-school, to go to bed suddenly ill, to run away God knew where, to hang himself on the pear-tree, to drown himself in the fish-pond, to burn the marquee, to turn Infidel and deny a Providence, to get dead drunk. In this strain the indignant Ex-Sheriff was eloquently proceeding, when suddenly, a drop of rain, as big as a bullet, fell splashing on the bald head of the deputy; and then came a flash of lightning so vivid, and a clap of thunder so astounding, that in his confusion the host himself led a retreat into the house, followed by the company en masse. Music was prepared, and the carpet was taken up. Matilda was sulky, and wouldn't sing, and Mr. Hopkinson couldn't, through a cold caught in the octagon summer-house. Mrs. Filby was grumpy about her satin gown, observing, with an angry glance at Miss Sparkes, that if people must jump at claps of thunder, they needn't jump their jellies into other people's laps; and the pedagogue of Prospect House was weary of uttering classical jokes at which nobody laughed. The Honorable Mr. Danvers began to tire of looking on. Deputy Dobbs was disappointed of his accustomed speechifying, for in spite of all his hints, Twigg set his face against toasts, not liking probably to bid gentlemen charge their glasses who had so few to charge. The rest of the Londoners began to calculate the distance of the metropolis. Doctor Cobb had been huffed by Mr. Figgins in a dispute about politics; Squire Ned, for the last half hour, had been making up his mind to steal away; and even the Crumpe family, who had come early on purpose to enjoy a long day, began to agree in their own minds, that it was the longest they had ever known. In short, every body found some good reason for going, and successively they took leave, Doctor Bellamy being the last of the guests that departed, whereby he had the pleasure, and to Old Formality it was a pleasure, of bowing them all out. As the last pair of wheels rattled away, Mrs. Twigg dropped into her chair, and began to relieve her feelings by having what she called a good cry. At the same moment, Twigg threw off his coat, and seizing plate, knife, and fork, began eating like a glutton for a wager, occasionally washing down ham, beef, veal, chicken, jelly, tarts, and fruit, with great gulps of brandy and water. As for Matilda, she threw herself on a sofa, as flat, inanimate, and faded, as the Flora of a Hortus Siccus. Thus ended a fête especially devoted to enjoyment, but where the spirit of the work did not answer to its dedication. Premeditated pleasures frequently terminate in disappointment; for mirth and glee do not always care to accept a ceremonious invitation; they are friendly familiar creatures that love to drop in. To use a mercantile metaphor, bills at long dates upon happiness are apt to be dishonored when due. On the morrow, John the coachman found himself out of a situation, whilst Twigg, junior, was provided with a place on the roof of the Highflyer on its road to the metropolis. Pompey was threatened also with dismissal, but as black servants are not as plenty as blackberries, the discharge was not made out; whereas, the gardener, shocked at the havoc among his exotics, and annoyed by the nickname of Jerry Blossom, which his fancy dress had entailed on him, gave warning of his own accord. The cook received a message from her mistress, who was kept in bed by a nervous complaint, that she might suit herself as soon as she pleased; the dairy-maid received a significant hint from the same source, that she must butter the family better if she wished to stay in it; and to Dolly's deep regret, her favorite Daisy, with a bad character for gentleness, was driven off to the nearest market to be sold peremptorily for what she would fetch. MY AUNT HONOR. BY AGNES STRICKLAND. My Aunt Honor was for ten years the reigning beauty of her native village; and even at the end of that period, though the opening charms of early youth had gradually ripened into the more dignified graces of womanhood, and she was a girl no longer, no one could say that the change had caused that diminution in her personal attractions which could afford just reason for the loss of the title. It was but the seasonable expansion of the bud into the flower, and in the eye of every person of taste and sense, my Aunt Honor was a beauty still. How, indeed, could she be otherwise, with her graceful contour of form and face, her noble line of features, brilliant yet reflective; eyes of rich dark hazel; serene brow; coral lips; and clear brunette complexion? But unluckily for poor Aunt Honor, she had two younger sisters in their teens, who, as soon as they were emancipated from boardingschool, began to consider the expediency of making conquests; and finding that very few gentlemen paid much attention to them when their eldest sister was present, they took the trouble of making every one acquainted with the precise date of her baptismal register; after which kind disclosure Aunt Honor lost the title of a beauty, and acquired that of an old maid. This change of style was, I should apprehend, rather a trial of patience, in the first instance; for Aunt Honor, though she had never exhibited the slightest degree of vanity or presumption, on account of the general admiration she had excited, was nevertheless pleased with the homage paid to her charms-and it was hard to feel herself suddenly deprived of all her flattering privileges at once, and that without the reasonable warning which the faithful mirror gives of the first indications of the sure, yet silent, progress of decay in those who are not so wholly blinded by self-conceit as to be insensible to its ravages. Time had dealt so gently with Aunt Honor, that when the account of his takings and leavings were reckoned, it scarcely appeared that she stood at discount-I am inclined to think the balance was in her favor; but then I had so much reason to love her, that perhaps I was not an impartial judge. How, indeed, could I forget! her tender cherishing care of me in my bereaved and sickly childhood, when by the early death of my parents, my brother and myself being left in a comparative state of destitution, were thrown upon the compassion of my mother's family. This was regarded in the light of a serious misfortune by my two young aunts, Caroline and Maria, who might have instructed gray hairs in lessons of worldly wisdom, and both possessed what is vulgarly termed a sharp eye for the main chance. They calculated with a clearness and accuracy truly wonderful at their age for the elder of the twain had not completed her eighteenth year at the period of which I speak-the expense of our board, clothes, education, and the general diminution of their comforts and chances of forming advantageous matrimonial settlements, which would be occasioned by our residence with my grandfather; and they did not of course forget the great probability of his providing for us in his will, which would naturally take something from their portions of the inheritance. Under the influence of such feelings, they not only used every means in their power to prevent our reception in their father's house, but after we were, through the influence of Aunt Honor, admitted, they treated us with a degree of unkindness that amounted to actual persecution. All our little faults were repeated by them in the most exaggerated terms to my grandmother; and, but for the affectionate protection which Aunt Honor extended towards us, we should have experienced much harshness in consequence of these misrepresentations, but her tenderness made up to us for all deficiencies in other quarters. She was to us in the place of mother, father, and every other tie of kindred: she was by turns our nurse, preceptress, and playfellow. Our love, our duty, our respect, were all lavished on her; she was our kind aunt, our dear aunt, our good aunt; and well do I remember being tied to the leg of the table for a whole morning by my grandmother, as a punishment for exclaiming, in the fulness of my heart, that "she was my pretty aunt, and aunts Maria and Caroline were my two old, ugly, cross aunts." The rage of the injured juniors, by twelve years, may be imagined at this rash proof of my devotion to their eldest sister; nor could Aunt Honor, with any degree of prudence or propriety, interfere to avert the castigation which my young aunts bestowed upon me in the shape of boxes on the ears, too numerous to record, in addition to the penance of being confined to the leg of grandmamma's work-table. Considering me, however, in the light of a martyr in her cause, she made me more than ample amends in private for all I had suffered, and loaded me with the most endearing caresses, while she reproved me for having said such improper things to aunts Caroline and Maria. My grandmother, who, for the misfortune of her husband, was married long before she knew how to conduct a house with any degree of propriety, was one of those foolish women who occasionally boast of their own early nuptials to their unmarried daughters, with ill-timed remarks on their comparative tardiness in forming suitable matrimonial alliances, which has too often piqued the mortified maidens into contracting most unsuitable matches, that they might avoid the reproach of celibacy the fruitful source from which so many ill assorted and calamitous marriages have proceeded. My grandfather, who had formed a very just estimate of his eldest daughter's merits, was wont to observe, in reply to his wife's constant remark, "that Honor would never marry now, poor girl!" "Those women who were most eminently qualified to prove excellent wives, mothers, and mistresses of families, and who were, metaphorically speaking, the twenty thousand pound prizes in the matrimonial lottery, were generally left in the wheel, while the blanks and tickets of trifling value were drawn over and over again; but, for his part, he knew so much of men, that he would recommend all his daughters to remain single." Notwithstanding this declaration of the old gentleman, it was evident enough that he was inwardly chagrined at the unaccountable circumstance of his lovely Honor, his sensible, clever girl, the pride of his eyes, and the darling of his heart, being unmarried at thirty years of age; or as her younger sisters, in the insolence of their only attraction, youth, called her an "old maid." No! that he would not allow-" thirty"-she was in the prime of her days still, and, in his eyes, as handsome as ever;-certainly wiser and better than when she was in her teens-far more likely to be the choice of a sensible man than either of her younger sisters-and he would bet a hundred guineas that she would be married now before either of them. "Certainly, papa, if wedlock goes by turn, she ought to be," would Aunt Caroline rejoin, "for you know she is twelve years older than Ï." "She might, however, make haste, if she thinks of getting married now," would Aunt Maria add, with a silly giggle, "for she is getting quite venerable; and, for my part, if I do not marry by the time I am one-and-twenty, I am sure I shall consider myself an old maid.' "There will be some wisdom in accustoming yourself to the title betimes, since it may very probably be your portion through life, young lady," retorted my grandfather, on one occasion: "at any rate, no man of taste and sense will be likely to prefer you to such a woman as your sister Honor." But here my grandmother, who always made a sort of party with her younger daughters, interposed, and said, "It really was quite absurd that Honor should put herself so forward in engaging the attention of gentlemen, who might possibly fix their regards on her younger sisters, provided she would but keep a little in the background, and remember that her day was gone by. She had for some unaccountable reason permitted several opportunities of forming a good establishment to slip by, and now she ought to allow her sisters a fair chance in their turn, and submit to her own destiny with a good grace." And Aunt Honor did submit, not only with a good grace, but with a temper perfectly angelical, not only to a destiny of blighted hopes and wasted feelings, but to all invidious taunts with which it was imbittered by those to whom she had been ever ready to extend her generous kindness, whenever it was required. She never hesitated to sacrifice her own pleasure, if she thought it would be conducive to theirs. Her purse, her ornaments, her talents, and industry, were at their service on all occasions, and though it was far from pleasing to her to be either artfully manoeuvred, or rudely thrust out of her place by the juvenile pair, who had formed an alliance offensive and defensive | coming happy wives and useful members of society. Aunt Honor would have smiled at the folly of the latter inuendoes, had she not felt inclined to weep at their unkindness. against her, yet she did not attempt to contest with them the usurped rights and privileges of eldership, or to struggle for the ascendency she had hitherto enjoyed in the family; nor did she boast of her youthful charms, or the multiplicity of her former conquests, in reply to the insolence with which she was daily annoyed. She was too dignified to appear to regard these things; yet doubtless she felt them, and felt them keenly; her heart knew its own bitterness, yet suffered it not to overflow in angry, useless retorts. She kept the quiet even tenor of her way, under all provocations, with silent mag-signalized himself under the banners of the Marquis nanimity; and sought in the active performance of her duties, a resource from vain regrets and fruitless repinings; and if a sigh did occasionally escape her, it was smothered ere fully breathed. In the midst of one of these scenes, of now almost daily occurrence, the whole party received tickets of invitation to a ball, given by Sir Edward Grosvenor, in honor of having been chosen, after a contested election, as one of the representatives of his native county. Sir Edward Grosvenor, who had passed his youth in India, where he had greatly of Hastings, had only recently returned to England, to take possession of his estates on the death of his elder brother without heir male. Nothing could exceed the exultation of my grandmother and her two youngest daughters, at the prospect of a flattering introduction into the house of so distinguished a character as their wealthy baronet neighbor, of whom fame reported noble things, and who was a very handsome man in the prime of life, not exceeding, as the date of his birth in the baronetage of England stated, his six-and thirtieth year. Visions of a title, equipage, and wealth, floated over the brains of aunts Caroline and Maria, as their delighted eyes glanced over the tickets. There was but one drawback to these felicitous anticipations-the difficulty of procuring dresses suitable for such an occasion. The village in which we resided was one of those dull, stagnating sort of places, in which years pass away without any visible change appearing to be effected. The inhabitants were few, and these, for the most part, beneath us in situation; for my grandfather was a man of family, though his fortune was inadequate to the expenses attendant on entering into that society with which alone he would have permitted his wife and daughters to mix. Latterly, however, my two younger aunts contrived to engage in a general round of expensive visiting with the surrounding gentry, without paying the slightest regard to his disapprobation. Their mother upheld them in this line of conduct, They looked in eager inquiry at their mother; and had recourse to many painful expedients, in she shook her head. "I cannot do any thing to order to furnish them with the means of appearing forward your wishes," said she, "for reasons too like other young people, as she termed it, and we obvious to you both :"-but after a pause she had all to suffer the pains and penalties of a stinted added, "Your sister Honor can assist you, if she table in consequence. Aunt Honor was of course pleases." They both turned to Honor with implorexcluded from all these gay doings, and her allowing glances. "In this instance it will not be in my ance was very irregularly paid, and sometimes power," observed Honor, gravely. wholly diverted from its proper channel, to supply her younger sisters with ball-dresses, or to satisfy the clamorous milliner, who would not depart without the payment of at least a part of the bills my grandmother had imprudently permitted her selfish favorites to contract, when ready money to procure some indispensable piece of finery, to be worn at places of more than ordinary attraction, could not be obtained. Our house, in former times so quiet and respectable, was now the resort of the thoughtless, the gay, and the extravagant. Our peace was broken by the domiciliary visits of duns, to get rid of whom, a system of falsehood, equivocation, and blandishment, was made use of, which rendered our family despicable in the eyes of servants, and mean even in our own. Aunt Honor reasoned, entreated, and represented the evil and moral injustice of these things in vain. Her mother told her "she was mistress of her own house, and would do as she thought proper," and her two sisters informed her, "that they had no ambition to become old maids like her, which would infallibly be the case if they were confined to the dull solitude which their father preserved, and she appeared inclined to enforce." Aunt Honor represented, in reply, that they were not pursuing a course very likely to lead to the desired goal of the temple of Hymen; and received, in return, a retort of more than usual aggravation. She was accused of malice, of envy, and an unsisterly desire of depriving the youthful maidens of the pleasure belonging to their time of life; and worse than all, of the opportunity of be "You have only just received your quarterly allowance from your father," said her mother. "I have already appropriated part of the sum to the purchase of a few necessaries for my orphan nephew and niece," replied she, "and the residue, which would be quite inadequate for your purpose, will be barely sufficient to supply me with a simple dress of book-muslin, with shoes and gloves requisite for this occasion." "For this occasion !" echoed both her sisters in a breath; "surely you do not think of going to the ball?" Why not?" demanded Honor, calmly. "You are so Old, you would say, Caroline," continued Aunt Honor coolly, finishing the sentence for her; "only, as you happen to want money of me to-day, you are rather more cautious of wounding my feelings than is usual with you." Well, but really, Honor, I do not see what good your going to a ball would do."—"None," interposed her mother; "and I thought you had given up these sort of things long ago.' "Is it not your intention to accept the ticket which Sir Edward Grosvenor has sent for you, mamma?" asked Honor. "Of course it is; your sisters could not, with any degree of propriety, go without me." "Then I shall do myself the pleasure of accompanying you," said Honor, quietly. The elder sisters of Cinderella never said more insulting things to that far-famed heroine of fairy lore, to prevent her from trying her chance in fitting the glass slipper, than were uttered by Caro line and Maria to dear Aunt Honor from going to the ball. She listened to them with her usual mildness of temper, yet persevered in her resolution. I think I never saw her look so beautiful as on that eventful evening, when attired in modest, simple elegance, she was led by my grandfather to the carriage, in spite of all opposition from the adverse parties. I, of course, was not included in the party; but I can readily imagine that the surprise and envy of the mortified sisters of Cinderella, on entering the room where the hitherto despised victim of their persecutions was dancing with her princely partner, did not exceed that of my juvenile aunts, when they beheld the hero of the night-the gallant and admired Sir Edward Grosvenor-greet old Honor, as they disparagingly styled their elder, with the deferential yet tender air of a lover; and passing over, not only themselves, but many others of the young, the fair, the highborn stars of the evening, and entreating to open the ball with hera distinction which was modestly declined by her, with equal sweetness and propriety, on the plea that there were others of high rank present, who were, according to etiquette, better entitled to that LIBELLERS.-Literary bravos, supported by illiterate cowards. If the receiver of stolen goods be worse than the thief, so must the purchaser of libels be more culpable than their author. As the peruser of a slanderous journal would write what he reads, had he the talent, so the actual maligner would become a malefactor, had he the opportunity and the courage. "He who stabs you in the dark, with a pen, would do the same with a pen-knife, were he equally safe from detection and the law." he added, in a whisper that was meant for no other ear than hers, "sighed to possess this honor, of which the cold considerations of rank and etiquette can never possess sufficient power to deprive me.' Can any one believe that Aunt Honor was fastidious enough to examine too critically the merits of the pun which a faithful lover, under such circumstances, ventured on her name? There was not, perhaps, one lady in the room that would not have been proud of being the woman to whom Sir Edward Grosvenor addressed that whispered compliment; but there was none to whom it was so well due as to her whom he delighted to honor; for she was the love of his youth, who, for his sake, had faithfully endured years of expectation and delay, with no other assurance of his remembrance and constancy than that hope which keeps alive despair, and survives all the fading flowers of youthful affection-that fond reliance on his regard, which would not suffer her to imagine that he could be false or forgetful. Nor was the object of such devoted love undeserving of feelings like these. He too had had his sufferings: he had endured paternal wrath, expulsion from his home, years of exile, of poverty, and of suspense. "But it is all over now," he whispered, as he dashed an intrusive tear from his sun-burned cheek. "I suffered for Honor! I fought for Honor! and the residue of my days will, I trust, be passed with Honor!" It was a proud day for my grandfather, when he bestowed his beloved daughter on Sir Edward Grosvenor at the marriage altar; and he did not fail to take due credit to himself on the verification of his prediction. As for my aunts Caroline and Maria, I think I had better say nothing of their feelings on the occasion; but, for the warning of such of the juvenile readers of these pages who may feel inclined, in the thoughtless presumption of early youth, to brand older-and, perchance, fairer females than themselves-with the contemptuous epithet of old maids, I feel myself compelled to record the mortifying fact, that these two luckless sisters of my honored mother remain at this moment spinsters of forty and forty-two years standing, and have acted as bridesmaids to Lady Grosvenor's youngest daughter, without one opportunity having offered to either of them of changing their forlorn condition. So far, however, from voluntarily assuming the name of old maids, if unmarried at one-and-twenty, as they engaged to do when, in the fulness of their self-conceit, they imagined such a circumstance out of the bounds of human possibility, neither of them will acknowledge the title at forty; on the contrary, they endeavor to conceal the ravages of time under the affectation and airs of excessive youthfulness. | A libeller's mouth has been compared to that of a volcano-the lighter portions of what it vomits forth are dissipated by the winds, the heavier ones fall back into the throat whence they were disgorged. The aspersions of libellers may, perhaps, be better compared to fuller's earth, which, though it may seem to dirt you at first, only leaves you more pure and spotless, when it is rubbed offTin Trumpet. |