Barnett, to be left at the Pig and Pony, at Barstone; and anything you send for Miss Clara, I'll take care and give her when nobody won't be none the wiser for it; and any letters she writes, I'll put into the post myself. I'd do anything rather than let that young villain Cumberland have her, and make her miserable, which his wife is safe to be, if ever he gets one; and, if you likes her, and she likes you, as seems wery probable, considering you saved her from being burnt to death, as they tell me, and is wery goodlooking into the bargain-which goes a great way with young ladies, if you'll excuse the liberty I takes in mentioning of itwhy, the best thing as you can do, is to get married as soon as you can."

"Very pleasant advice, friend Peter," returned I, "but not so easily acted upon; people cannot marry now-a-days without something to live upon."

"Well, ain't Miss Clara got Barstone Priory, and plenty of money to keep it up with? Won't that do to live upon?"

"And do you imagine I could ever feel content to be the creature of my wife's bounty? prove myself a needy fortune-hunter, as that old man dared to term me?" exclaimed I, forgetting the character of my auditor.

"Barstone Priory to live in, and more money than you know what to do with, ain't to be sneezed at neither," was the answer; "though I likes your independent spirit too, Sir: but how do you mean to manage, then?"

'Why, Mr. Vernor hinted that if his ward married without his consent, her fortune was to be forfeited."

“Ah! I believe there was something of that nature in the will: my poor master was so wrapped up in old Wernor, that he wrote just wot he told him; if he'd only a lived to see how he was going to use Miss Clara, he'd a ordered me to kick him out of the house instead."

"Perhaps that pleasure may be yet in store for you, Peter," replied I, laughing at the zest with which he uttered the last few words, and an involuntary motion of the foot by which they were accompanied; "but this power, which it seems Mr. Vernor really possesses, of depriving Miss Saville of her fortune, removes my greatest difficulty; for in that case, if he should attempt to urge on this match, I can at least make her the offer of sharing my poverty: there is my mother's roof to shelter her, and, if her guardian refuses his consent to our marriage, why, we must contrive to

do without it, that is all. So now, Peter, if you will wait a few minutes, I will give you a note for your young mistress, and then get to horse without further loss of time;" and calling for pen, ink, and paper, I hastily scribbled a few lines to Clara, informing her of the events of the morning, and of my unalterable determination to save her from a union with Cumberland; begging her, at the same time, to continue firm in her opposition, to acquaint me with everything that might occur, and to rely upon me for protection in the event of anything like force being resorted to. I then intrusted my note to old Peter, begged him to watch master Richard Cumberland closely, told him that upon his care and vigilance depended in great measure the happiness of his young mistress's life; tipped him handsomely, though I had some trouble in making him take the money; and, mounting my ill-disposed horse, rode back to Hillingford, on the whole tolerably well satisfied with my morning's work.

I found two letters awaiting my return: one from my mother, to say that she should be at Heathfield Cottage on the following day, and begging me to meet her; the other from Ellis, telling me that at length he hoped Oaklands was in a fair way to recover, it having been ascertained that a piece of the wadding of the pistol had remained behind when the ball was extracted; this had now come away, and the wound was healing rapidly. As his strength returned, Harry was growing extremely impatient to get back to Heathfield; and Ellis concluded by saying that they might be expected any day, and begging me at the same time to remember, that from the first he had always declared, in regard to his patient, that it would have killed any other man, but that it could not kill him.

Days glided by, the absentees returned, and matters fell so completely into their old train again, that the occurrences of the last eight months seemed like the unreal creations of some fevered dream, and there were times when I could scarcely bring myself to believe them true.

Harry Oaklands had recovered sufficiently to resume his usual habits; and, except that he was strictly forbidden to over-exert or fatigue himself (an injunction he appeared only too willing to obey), he was nearly emancipated from medical control. Fanny had in great measure regained her good looks again; a slight delicacy of appearance, however, still remained, giving a tone of spirituality to the expression of her features, which was not before

observable, and which to my mind rendered her prettier than ever the listlessness of manner which had made me uneasy about her in the autumn had vanished, and her spirits seemed good; still she was in a degree altered, and one felt in talking to her that she was a child no longer. Like Undine, that graceful creation of La Motte Fouqué's genius, she appeared to have changed from a "tricksy sprite" into a thinking and feeling

woman.

One morning Oaklands and Ellis came to the cottage together, the latter in a great state of joy and excitement, produced by a most kind and judicious exercise of liberality on the part of Sir John. About a month before, the grave and pompous Dr. Probehurt had been seized with an illness, from which in all probability he would have recovered had he not steadily refused to allow a rival practitioner to be called in, in order that he might test a favourite theory of his own, embodying a totally novel mode of treatment for the complaint with which he was attacked. Unfortunately, the experiment failed, and the doctor died. Sir John, who had been long anxious to evince his gratitude to Ellis for the skill and attention he had bestowed upon his patient, the moment he heard of the event, determined to purchase the business: he had that morning completed the negotiation, and offered the practice to Ellis, stating that he should consider his accepting it in the light of a personal favour, as in that case he would be always at hand, should Harry feel any lasting ill effects from his wound. Ellis's joy was most amusing to witness.

"I tell you what, Sir," he exclaimed, seizing me by a button of the coat, "I'm a made man, Sir! there isn't a better practice in the county. Why, poor Probehurt told me himself, old Mrs. Croaker Crawley alone was worth £100 per annum to him :-four draughts and two pills every day-prescription very simple-R. Pil. panis compos. ij. nocte sum.; haust. aqua vitæ 1, aqua pura 1, saccar. viij. grs. pro re nata. She's a strong old girl, and on brandyand-water draughts and French-roll pills, may last for the next twenty years. Noble thing of Sir John, very; 'pon my word, it has quite upset me-it's a fact, Sir, that when Mr. Oaklands told me of it, I sat down and cried like a child. I'm not over tenderhearted either: when I was at Guy's, I amputated the left leg of a shocking accident, and dissected the porter's mother-in-law (whom he sold us cheap for old acquaintance sake) before breakfast one morning, without finding my appetite in the slightest degree

affected; but when I learned what Sir John had done, I positively cried, Sir."

"I say, Ellis," interrupted Harry, "I am telling Miss Fairlegh I shall make you take her in hand; she has grown so pale and thin, I am afraid she has never recovered all the trouble and inconvenience we caused her."

"If Miss Fairlegh would allow me, I should recommend a little more air and exercise," replied Ellis: "are you fond of riding on horseback?"

"Oh, yes!" replied Fanny, smiling, and blushing slightly at thus suddenly becoming the topic of conversation; "that is, I used to delight in riding Frank's pony in days of yore; but he has not kept a pony lately."

"That is easily remedied," returned Harry; "I am certain some of our horses will carry a lady. I shall speak to Harris about it directly, and we'll have some rides together, Fanny; it was only this morning that I obtained my tyrant's permission to cross a horse once more," he added, shaking his fist playfully at Ellis.

"The tyrant will agree to that more willingly than to your first request. What do you think, Fairlegh," continued Ellis, appealing to me, "of his positively wanting to go out hunting?"

"And a very natural thing to wish, too, I conceive," replied Harry ; "but what do you think of his declaring that, if I did not faithfully promise I would not hunt this season, he would go into the stables, and divide, what he called, in his doctor's lingo, the flexor metatarsi of every animal he found there, which, being interpreted, means neither more nor less than hamstring all the hunters." Well, that would be better than allowing you to do anything which might disturb the beautiful process of granulation going on in your side. I remember, when I was a student at Guy's

Come, Doctor, we positively cannot stand any more of your 'Chronicles of the Charnel-house' this morning; you have horrified Miss Fairlegh already to such a degree that she is going to run away. If I should stroll down here again in the afternoon, Fanny, will you take compassion on me so far as to indulge me with a game of chess? I am going to send Frank on an expedition, and my father and Ellis are off to settle preliminaries with poor Mrs. Probehurt, so that I shall positively not have a creature to speak to. Reading excites me too much, and produces a state of· What is it you call it, Doctor?"

"I told you yesterday, I thought you were going into a state of

coma, when you fell asleep over that interesting paper of mine in the Lancet, 'Recollections of the Knife;' if that's what you call excitement," returned Ellis, laughing

"Nonsense, Ellis, how absurd you are!" rejoined Oaklands, halfamused and half-annoyed at Ellis's remark, "but you have not granted my request yet, Fanny."

"I do not think we have any engagement-mamma will, I am sure, be very happy"-began Fanny, with a degree of hesitation for which I could not account; but as I was afraid Oaklands might notice it, and attribute it to a want of cordiality, I hastened to interrupt her by exclaiming, "Mamma will be very happy-of course she will; and each and all of us are always only too happy to get you here, old fellow; it does one's heart good to see you beginning to look a little more like yourself again. If Fanny's too idle to play chess, I'll take compassion upon you, and give you a thorough beating myself."

"There are two good and sufficient reasons why you will not do anything of the kind,” replied Oaklands: "in the first place, while you have been reading mathematics, I have been studying chess; and I think that I may, without conceit, venture to pronounce myself the better player of the two; and in the second place, as I told your sister just now, I am going to send you out on an expedition."

"To send me on an expedition!" repeated I-"may I be allowed to inquire its nature-where I am to go to-when I am to start-and all other equally essential particulars ?”

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They are soon told," returned Oaklands. "I wrote a few days since to Lawless, asking him to come down for a week's hunting before the season should be over; and this morning I received the following characteristic answer:-'Dear Oaklands, a man who refuses a good offer is an ass (unless he happens to have had a better one). Now, yours being the best offer down in my book at present, I say 'done, along with you, old fellow,' thereby clearly proving that I am no ass. Q. E. D.-eh? that's about the thing, isn't it? Now, look here, Jack Bassett has asked me down to Storley Wood for a day's pheasant shooting on Tuesday: if you could contrive to send any kind of trap over about lunch-time, on Wednesday, I could have a second pop at the long-tails, and be with you in time for a half-past six o'clock feed, as it is not more than ten miles from Storley to Heathfield. I wouldn't have troubled you to send for me, only the tandem's hors de combat. I was fool enough to lend it to Muffington Spoffkins to go and see his aunt