Were rich and honourable."-Two Gentlemen of Verona. "We that are true lovers run into strange capers."-As You Like It. The law of friendship bids me to conceal."-Two Gentlemen of Verona. But fly I hence, I fly away from life." "DEAR me! what can it possibly mean? how I wish I could guess it!" said the youngest Miss Simper. "Do you know what it is, Mr. Oaklands?" asked the second Miss Simper. "I'm sure he does, he looks so delightfully wicked," added the eldest Miss Simper, shaking her ringlets in a fascinating manner, to evince her faith in the durability of their curl. The eldest Miss Simper had been out four seasons, and spent the last winter at Nice, on the strength of which she talked to young men of themselves in the third person, to show her knowledge of the world, and embodied in her behaviour generally a complete system of "Matrimony-made-easy, or the whole Art of getting a good Establishment," proceeding from early lessons in converting acquaintances into flirts, up to the important final clause-how to lead young men of property to propose. 66 Really," replied Oaklands, "my face must be far more expressive and less honest than I was aware of, for I can assure you they have studiously kept me in the dark as to the meaning." "But you have made out some idea for yourself; it is impossible that it should be otherwise," observed the second Miss Simper, who had rubbed off some of her shyness upon a certain young Hebrew Professor at the last Cambridge Installation, and become rather blue from the contact. "Have you?" said the youngest Miss Simper, who, being as nearly a fool as it is possible to allow that a pretty girl of seventeen can be, rested her pretensions upon a plaintive voice and a pensive smile, which went just far enough to reveal an irreproachable set of teeth, and then faded away into an expression of gentle sorrow, the source of which, like that of the Niger, had as yet remained undiscovered. "Oh, he has!" exclaimed the eldest Miss Simper, "that exquisitely sarcastic, yet tantalizing curl of the upper lip, tells me that it is so." "Since you press me," replied Oaklands, "I confess, I believe I have guessed it." "I knew it, it could not have been otherwise," exclaimed the blue belle enthusiastically. The youngest Miss Simper spoke not, but her appealing glance, and a slight exhibition of the pearl-like teeth, seemed to hint that some mysterious increase of her secret sorrow might be expected in the event of Oaklands refusing to communicate the results of his penetration. "As I make it out," said Harry, "the first scene was Inn, the second Constancy, and the third Inconstancy." 66 "Ah! that wretch John, he was the Inconstancy," observed the eldest Miss Simper, marrying for money!-the creature !—such baseness! but how delightfully that dear, clever Mr. Lawless acted; he made love with such naïve simplicity too, he is quite irresistible.” I shall take care to let him know your flattering opinion," returned Oaklands, with a faint attempt at a smile, while the gloom on his brow grew deeper, and the Misses Simper were in their turn deserted; the eldest gaining this slight addition to her worldly knowledge, viz., that it is not always prudent to praise one friend to another, unless you happen to be a little more behind the scenes than had been the case in the present instance. "Umph! Frank Fairlegh, where are you? come here, boy," said Mr. Frampton, seizing one of my buttons, and towing me thereby into a corner. "Pretty girl, your sister Fanny-nice girl too-Umph!" "I am very glad she pleases you, sir,” replied I; "as you be come better acquainted with her, you will find that she is as good as she looks,—if you like her now, you will soon grow very fond of her-everybody becomes fond of Fanny." "Umph! I can see one who is, at all events. Pray, sir, do you mean to let your sister marry that good-natured, well-disposed, harum-scarum young fool, Lawless ?" "This is a matter I leave entirely to themselves,—if Lawless wishes to marry Fanny, and she likes him well enough to accept him, and his parents approve of the arrangement, I shall make no objection: it would be a very good match for her." "Umph! yes-she would make a very nice addition to his stud," returned Mr. Frampton, in a more sarcastic tone than I had ever heard him use before. "What do you suppose are the girl's own wishes? is she willing to be Empress of the Stable ?" "Really, sir, you ask me a question which I am quite unable to answer; young ladies are usually reserved upon such subjects, and Fanny is especially so; but from my own observations, I am inclined to think that she likes him.” "Umph! dare say she does; women are always fools in these cases-men too, for that matter- -or else they would take pattern by me, and continue in a state of single blessedness," then came an aside, "Single wretchedness more likely, nobody to care about one -nothing to love-die in a ditch like a beggar's dog, without a pocket-handkerchief wetted for one, there's single blessedness for you! ride in a hearse, and have some fat fool chuckling in the sleeve of his black coat over one's hard-earned money. Nobody shall do that with mine though, for I'll leave it all to build union workhouses and encourage the slave trade, by way of revenging myself on society at large. Wonder why I said that, when I don't think it; just like me-Umph!" "I am not at all sure but that this may prove a mere vision of our own too lively imaginations, after all," replied I," or that Lawless looks upon Fanny in any other light than as the sister of his old friend, and an agreeable girl to talk and laugh with; but if it should turn out otherwise, I should be sorry to think that it is a match which will not meet with your approval, sir." "Oh! I shall approve-I always approve of everything—I dare say he'll make a capital husband-he's very kind to his dogs and horses. Umph! silly boy, silly girl-when she could easily do better too. Umph! just like me, bothering myself about other people, when I might leave it alone-silly girl though, very!" So saying, Mr. Frampton walked away, grunting like a whole drove of pigs, as was his wont when annoyed. The next morning I was aroused from an uneasy sleep by the sun shining brightly through my shutters, and, springing out of bed, and throwing open the window, perceived that it was one of those lovely winter days which appear sent to assure us that fogs, frost, and snow will not last for ever, but that Nature has brighter things in store for us, if we will bide her time patiently. To think of lying in bed on such a morning was out of the question, so, dressing hastily, I threw on a shooting jacket, and sallied forth for a stroll. As I wandered listlessly through the park, admiring the hoar-frost which glittered like diamonds in the early sunshine, clothing the brave old limbs of the time-honoured fathers of the forest with a fabric of silver tissue, the conversation I had held with Mr. Frampton about Fanny and Lawless recurred to my mind. Strange that Harry Oaklands and Mr. Frampton,-men so different, yet alike in generous feeling and honourable principle,should both evidently disapprove of such a union: was I myself, then, so blinded by ideas of the worldly advantages it held forth, that I was unable to perceive its unfitness? Would Lawless really prize her, as Tennyson has so well expressed it in his finest poem, as "Something better than his dog, a little dearer than his horse ?" and was I about to sacrifice my sister's happiness for rank and fortune, those world-idols, which, stripped of the supposititious attributes bestowed upon them by the bigotry of their worshippers, appear, in their true worthlessness, empty breath and perishable dross? But most probably there was no cause for uneasiness; after all, I was very likely worrying myself most unnecessarily: what proof was there that Lawless really cared for Fanny? His attentions-oh! there was nothing in that-Lawless was shy and awkward in female society, and Fanny had been kind to him, and had taken the trouble to draw him out, therefore he liked her, and preferred talking and laughing with her, rather than with any other girl, with whom he did not feel at his ease. However, even if there should be anything more in it, it had not gone so far but that a little judicious snubbing would easily put an end to it,—I determined, therefore, to talk to my mother about it after breakfast: she had now seen enough of Lawless to form her own opinion of him, and if she agreed with Oaklands and Mr. Frampton that his was not a style of character calculated to secure Fanny's happiness, we must let her go and stay with the Colemans, or find some other means of separating them. I had just arrived at this conclusion, when, on passing round the stem of an old tree which stood in the path, I encountered some person who was advancing rapidly in an opposite direction, meeting him so abruptly that we ran against each other with no small degree of violence. "Hold hard there! you're on your wrong side, young fellow, and if you've done me the slightest damage, even scratched my varnish, I'll pull you up." "I wish you had pulled up a little quicker yourself, Lawless," replied I, for, as the reader has doubtless discovered from the style of his address, it was none other than the subject of my late reverie with whom I had come in collision. "I don't know whether I have scratched your varnish, as you call it, but I have knocked the skin off my own knuckles against the tree in the scrimmage." "Never mind, man," returned Lawless, "there are worse misfortunes happen at sea; a little sticking-plaster will set all to rights again. But look here, Fairlegh," he continued, taking my arm, "I'm glad I happened to meet you; I want to have five minutes' serious conversation with you." "Won't it do after breakfast?" interposed I, for my fears construed this appeal into "confirmation strong as holy writ" of my previous suspicions, and I wished to be fortified by my mother's opinion before I in any degree committed myself. All my precautions were, however, in vain. "Eh! I won't keep you five minutes, but you see this sort of thing will never do at any price; I'm all wrong altogether-sometimes I feel as if fire and water would not stop me, or cart-ropes hold me—then again I grow as nervous as an old cat with the palsy, and sit moping in a corner like an owl in fits. Last hunting-day I was just as if I was mad-pressed upon the pack when they were getting away-rode over two or three of the tail hounds, laid 'em sprawling on their backs, like spread eagles, till the huntsman swore at me loud enough to split a three-inch oak plank,—went slap at everything that came in my way-took rails, fences, and timber, all flying, rough and smooth as nature made 'em,-in short, showed the whole field the way across country, at a pace which rather astonished them, I fancy;—well, at last there was a check, and before the hounds got on the scent again, something seemed to come over me, so that I could not ride a bit, and kept cranning at mole-hills and shirking gutters, till I wound up by getting a tremendous purl from checking my horse at a wretched little fence that he could have stepped over, and actually I felt so faint-hearted that I gave it up as a bad job, and rode home ready to eat my hat with vexation. But I know what it is, I'm in love —that confounded Charade put me up to that dodge. I fancied at first that I had got an ague, one of those off-and-on affairs that |