scraping and shuffling, as thirty pair of red morocco slippers are deposited at the foot of the stairs, and barefooted the procession mounts, and is ushered into the hall of reception.

Twenty minutes, at least, are consumed in the exchange of verbose compliments, smoking, and sipping of coffee and sherbet. Not the remotest allusion has been made to the real object of the visit; and when at length the delalh, with a very solemn countenance, produces a book of patterns from underneath his mashlab, an exclamation of disapprobation ensues. "Heaven forbid! Why should the delightful keif of the moment be interrupted ? Why should the calm and tranquil felicity of the great Bey from Frankgistan be imposed upon? What an absurd idea to talk about buying and selling, when, mashallah!-there are a thousand inexhaustible and amusing topics to discuss." Eventually, however, after a great deal of enormous gammon, the buyers condescend to take the sample book in hand, inspect it closely and keenly, pass it silently from hand to hand, and eventually, as though by mutual and preconcerted agreement, burst forth into an exclamation of disappointment. The delalh, they declare, is a deceiver of the worst kind; they had been led to expect articles of a superior quality; they are grossly mistaken; they had better be off at once, as the Howajah was weary of their company, and only laughing at their beards.

The Howajah (our friend the British merchant) smokes furiously at this stage of proceedings. He is perfectly aware that the samples produced are not to be rivalled in the whole city, and he would willingly punch their combined heads round and round. Such a process, however, would not exactly coincide with the ideas of the Aleppine chamber of commerce. Nevertheless, it has occurred within our own recollection.

It is now the turn of the dalalh and his party to figure upon the stage. Tearing the hairs out of their beards, pretending to rend their garments, they jump about, vehemently protesting against the unjust and cruel insinuations of the Bagdad mer. chant and his clique. The former must be an exceedingly painful operation, as it produces tears in the eyes of the performers. But what can be more affecting than a weeping dalalh -crocodile tears though they be. The hearts of

the Bagdadli and his followers give way; they invite the injured party soothingly to smoke one pipe, and after that they plunge into the business of the evening again. This time there is no dispute about the quality of the goods; this is tacitly recognised; but the valuation is the dreadful bone of contention.

From the days of Abraham down to the present hour it is doubtful whether the process of bargaining has undergone any change in the East. When the old man purchased the field to bury Sarah his wife, the exclamation of the vendors is realised every day in Aleppo. The delalh, on the side of the European merchant, fixes exactly three times the valuation he intends to sell at, or to barter at. On the other hand, the Bagdadli offers freely one-fourth the sum he has previously made up his mind to give. Amidst a clamour that beggars description-amidst fits of violent wrath and alternate supplication-amidst bursts of laughter, and alternate bursts of grief, interrupted ever and anon by long intervals of protracted silence, during which the prostrated disputants are smoking diligently, and girding up their loins for a fresh encounter-the bargain advances, with a snail-like pace, towards completion. On either side hourly concessions are made, until the affair approaches to a climax.

In this interval three whole nights are consumed, and it would be more than any sensible or sane man would presume to calculate what amount of useless language, what exhibitions of wrath, &c., have been expended, or the quantity of pipes smoked, and coffee and sherbet imbibed. Eventually

just when human nature can bear up against the wear and tear no longer, and the whole party are unintelligibly hoarse-like the last flickering of an expiring candle, they leap up into the air, yell forth their determination to close with the bargain. The delalb, by main force, joins the hands of the contracting parties; and amidst a shout that startles the whole neighbourhood, the bargain is completed.

Brown, of the Exchange, London, or Macpherson, of Glasgow, would have settled this business, on equally advantageous terms, in as many minutes as these merchants have used up hours and days in doing it.

How beautiful she was, that dear young girl! How very, very beautiful! Yet, scarcely, as the world would say-for her face could not be called faultless. The features were irregular, her mouth too large at least, others said it was-although I never thought so; and then her nose was pro

nounced rather short, her brow over high. But her eyes! there was no fault in them; full, dark, and large-they seemed liquid globes of light. Yet it was the deep, earnest expression which made them what they were to me.

She was delicate in health, and therefore pale;

át times, indeed, almost sallow.

There was nothing of the rose in her complexion-only the lily-the pale, fading lily.

Her hair was of a rich golden brown; when in the sunshine it seemed as if the golden beams clung there for rest. Thick and long were those tresses. She used to wind them round her head in classic plaits. Many a time have I watched her as she stood in her loose dressing gown, laughing and talking while she arranged that mass of hair, thinking nothing of its beauty or luxuri- | ance, but only how she could put it up tidily, and draw it off the temple to cool the ever heated brow.

Poor Marion! thy memory clings round my heart like a bright flower to a weather beaten stem; a bright flower, whose petals have been destroyed by the drifting shower, and whose root has rotted in the cold bed of clay, into which it was plunged. Poor Marion! Poor dear child! Marion Gladesdale was motherless. True, there was one who had taken her mother's place, and should have acted a mother's part by her; but as she did nothing of the kind, Marion was in very truth motherless.

Now a few words about this same step-damethe second Mrs. Gladesdale. I begin with her personal appearance, once the primary object in her estimation, as leading to the secondary result, ma riage.

She was what is termed a fine woman, and truly did she think herself so. When Mr. Gladesdale met her she was a widow, with two children, unfortunately. I say unfortunately, because these children were stumbling blocks in the way of Marion. They usurped the affection she should have had coming between her and her father's love. Not at once-not at that time-but after wards they wedged themselves in, as it were, between the father and child-sundering one from the other. How could he have held up the bold Lucille Devigne, his step daughter, as an example for his own pearl, the gentle Marion? Yet this he did. Blind fool that he was, he tried to make her like that proud Lucille; but he failed, for with all her gentleness, Marion was as firm as adamant in the path of truth and purity.

Madame Devigne, the mother-in-law of Marion, was an Englishwoman by birth, a Frenchwoman by marriage. Her first husband had been an artist, with more genius than wealth-more personal admiration for his wife, than real interest in her welfare. While he lived, he supplied her with money for her dress, her assemblies, her follies; when he died he left her nothing-not even the furniture of the house they lived in; that had been mortgaged during his lifetime, and the mortgagee came in the wake of Death, and took everything they had.

It was a miserable prospect for the widowtwo children, and nothing to support them. Madame turned her thoughts to her mental and other resources, and asked what they could do for

her, and they answered-nothing. She turned her eyes to her looking glass, and scanned her handsome features, and then propounded the same question to them, and their reply was-something. And as the consequence of this reply, she donned very becoming widow's weeds, and removed to London, and taking some very humble rooms, occupied them with her children.

The parks and public gardens were her arenas now, and in them she walked each day, with her daughters-never alone; and one day she met Mr. Gladesdale, in a secluded part of the gardens. She sat down on the same seat with him, and lifted her little girls up by her side, for they were only six years old then-both of the same age, for they were twins.

Mr. Gladesdale looked at the young widow, and compassionated her, and pitied her fatherless children. He was a kind-hearted man, and he addressed some casual remark to one of the children. He meant it for neither boldness nor impertinence; he was not the style of man to offer insult to a woman. He spoke from kindness, and kindness only.

After he went home that night, he thought much of the three whom he had seen; and perhaps it was thinking of them made him go the next day to Kensington Gardens, in the hope of meeting them again. Whether he hoped it or not, he did meet them, and he continued meeting them day after day, until one fine morning he followed them home, to the poor abode of the widow and her children. Six months more, and the uncomfortable lodging was exchanged for the comfortable dwelling house, Madame Devigue becoming Mrs. Gladesdale. Marion-but why say anything of her?-she was but a cipher under the new arrangement.

All went smoothly enough for the first few months, but then the eloven foot began to peep out. A nursery governess was talked of for the two daughters of the lady; but when Mr. Gladesdale acquiesced in the proposal, mildly observing that it would be a good thing for Marion as well, he was met with a cold negative, Mrs. Gladesdale assuring him, that Marion was only a baby, much too young for anything but play.

"Yes," he replied; "that I grant. But she can play quite as well under the care of a superior as an inferior servant; and a nursery governess is supposed to be superior to a nurse.'

The lady saw that for once he was firm, therefore she yielded. Little Marion shared the care of the nursery governess with Lucille and Adele. From that day a gloomy shadow fell on the child's life. I saw it, and she was conscious of it herself. In outward circumstances she appeared to be better off than she had been before the affray of the governess. She was better dressed, better tended. Her clothes, when needing repair, were mended before those of the other children; and a supercilious order-"Mr. Gladesdale's daughter first," proved that the fact was not accidental.

C

At dinner she now sat at her father's right hand; the governess had charge to pay particular attention to her; everything seemed done with a view to making a difference between her and the other children; and Marion, with her timid, sensitive nature, felt this as keenly, and understood it, as well as I did.

Mr. Gladesdale was in business, and therefore away from home all day; he saw nothing of the studied unkindness shown to Marion. On the contrary, he was pleased with the additional care apparently taken of her, and from a feeling of gratitude, sought to return the kindness of his wife for the motherless Marion, by cultivating the same feelings for her fatherless girls.

Mr. Gladesdale was a weak man; very kindhearted and amiable, but miserably weak. A person who knew how to get on the blind side of him, could manage him completely. He was a good steed, easily governed by a skilful hand; ride him with the suaffle, and he would go quietly enough-the curb and whip only made him restive. He could, in other words, be more easily led than driven; and this his clever wife (for she was a very clever woman in worldly policy), found out. She took the gentler course, and led him; and if she foresaw any difficulty in gaining her point, always yielded before it came to a positive contest of will, knowing well enough that she could turn even the yielding to her own account when she pleased. I took deep interest in Mr. Gladesdale and his family, and thus it came to pass that I knew so much about them, and thought so much, and now write so much of that child, Marion. It happened in this wise. Marion's maternal grandfather was my guardian; not that he had much to guard in the way of property-my income was only sufficient to do what it did for a time-i. e., keep a young woman, first of all, and then an old one, in very quiet lodgings; dress her decently, and enable her to get all she wanted of the necessaries of life without labouring for them.

However, Marion's mother and myself had been brought up together. I was going to say that we were like sisters, but that is not saying much, for sisters are sometimes like Dr. Watts's birds, who "in their little nests agree," fabled friends only, fighting and squabbling in most unfriendly manner in reality; so I will mend my sentence, and say we were as sisters ought to be. We loved each other dearly, and when she married I felt that my sunshine had become clouded in the world, until her first baby smiled; then it cheered me again, until-but I cannot write of that. She died! I had nothing on earth to love now; but her helpless, help-craving babe. I was some years older than Marion's mother-six or seven, it may be; and at the time of her death I was verging on oldmaidenism. The spinster fate had no great terrors for me; I should have liked well enough to have been married, if I could have found any one to suit me, but as the right person never was found, I remained single.

Now, the fever of youth and its excitement having passed away, I first bethought myself, as I sat down by my own desolate hearth, that I would make the poor unconscious babe my care and object in life. From the window of my bedroom I could see the light in her nursery, I could almost hear her cry. Thus, being so near I had her completely under my own eye. Her father was in the city all day. He lived in the outskirts of London, in a very healthy but unfashionable neighbourhood, where small and large houses stood side by side, and were at least superior, in one respect, to those who lived in them. They, the houses, did not look with envy or contempt, according to their own magnitude or diminution, on each other, whereas the inhabitants did; therefore, the houses were, in this respect, wiser, or not so foolish rather (for their virtue, like the virtue of many another great and little thing, was but a negative quality after all) than the people.

Now in this locality were two houses standing very near together, the road only separated them: one was a large and important-looking place; the other small and insignificant. Mr. Gladesdale lived in the larger, I lodged in the smaller of these two tenements.

How egotistical I have become! talking thus about myself and my lodgings; and yet it is scarcely egotism after all, it is only that those who care to read may understand how I could be near the dear child at all times. But I am afraid that is only a lame excuse, and that I love to linger over these scenes of my life because they are intertwined with her story.

About two years after his wife's death, I was very much surprised one day by Mr. Gladesdale asking me to take her place. I had never thought of the arrangement, it seemed to me like marrying my brother, and so I told him. He was of a dif ferent opinion, and begged me to reconsider the subject. I did. My opinion remained unchanged. I wished for the sake of Marion I could have looked on him in the light of a husband, but it was utterly impossible. I repeated to him what I had said before; but at the same time I told him, and without any embarrassment, that I would still be a mother to his child. There was no virtue in that, for I could not part with her; had he insisted on my taking himself as an appendage to the child, I believe I should almost have said yea. I say almost, for I don't think I should quite have done it. Two years later, and he found a second wife in Madame Devigne.

I did not like the match from the first, but it was great impertinence for me to dislike. The man had a right to marry whom he pleased, without consulting my fancy. Yet I did not like it. The children were an insuperable objection, par ticularly with such a mother; for I could see that she was merely an underbred worldly woman, and unfit to be the guide of Marion; and this brings me back to the point where I started on my egotistical expedition.

All went on well, then, as I said before, for the first few months after marriage; then came the affray of the governess and then the cold nipping breath which blew from thence Marion.

over

She was a very sensitive child, and I have seen the blood tinge her face and brow as she took her newly-appointed place by her father at dinner; and sometimes he noticed it, and would ask her what she feared. "She is very timid," he said to me one day; "I cannot understand her her mother was nervous, perhaps Marion inherits her constitution." I longed to tell him she was timid, because she lived in a perpetual atmosphere of dread; that she was cowed, and all joy crushed out of her baby heart and mind by that cruel woman whom he had placed over her. However, I said nothing; Itnought he might tell his wife, and then she, of course, would exclude me from the house, and I should lose sight of Marion; so I said nothing.

As the twins grew up, I could see that they, taking the tone from their mother, began to slight Marion. If any scheme of pleasure were talked of, and only a certain number could participate in it, they would remark that, of course Marion, "father's pet," must go. When birthday and festive seasons brought with them the accustomed offerings of presents, did Marion's accidentally exceed theirs in value or beauty, furtive looks passed, which said, "Marion before us." This all had an evil influence on Marion. She did not become sullen or morose, as others would, perhaps; but she grew dispirited and unhappy. I have seen her try to win a smile from that cold-hearted woman by a hundred little acts of kindness, and I have seen each received as a mere matter-of-course-no word of praise or encouragement given, nothing to help the poor crushed heart to rise. Many a time, when she has run to do some little errand for her mother-in-law, which perhaps Lucille hesitated to perform, have I watched her turn her gentle eyes to the stern cold face, hoping to see an expression less cold than usual, and then I have noted the sigh with which her hopes were quenched.

At fourteen she was a tall, slim, girl, very graceful and very quiet. Subdued in manner and in heart, she no longer sought to please her harsh step-dame-all that was over. She was content not to give offence-she sought no more than that. She lived, not for any of the pleasant things of life-kindness, affection, happiness-none of these did she know, except perhaps as far as I was my self concerned; but because life had been bestowed upon her.

She was not what is called a "clever girl;" her delicate health had terribly marred her educational progress; she was not clever, and, as she had not a good memory, she could not bring in at the right time and place all she had heard or read, and so pass off other people's wisdom for her own-for memory often, with the unthinking, passes for talent.

Thus Marion did not seem to be clever; but she had a fund of common sense, which was more valuable than all the talent in the world. She rarely gave an opinion; she had been taught not to do that by the remarks which for years had been levelled against her, such as "What can she know ?" "How can an idiot like Marion tell ?" and the like. But when she did say what she thought on any subject, she was quite sure to be right.

And now she was fourteen, the twins sixteen. There was a great contrast in the appearance of Marion and her sisters. I preferred hers. People generally admired the twins the most, particularly Lucille, who was considered a beauty. Mr. Gladesdale belonged to the latter party. "I wish you were more like Lucille," he would say to Marion; "all the money I have spent on you seems wasted. I am ashamed of you when any one dines with us; you sit like an automaton, and never say one word. Pray take Lucille as your model; she is a daughter to be proud of." Marion's lip quivered at these cold words; I saw her raise her eyes and try to answer, and then her head drooped, and she became as silent as ever.

At this time a great change took place in the domestic arrangements of the Gladesdale family. Mr. Gladesdale had made an ample fortune; and, being tired of the anxiety of commercial life, thought he would retire. His partner paid him bandsomely for the share in the business, and, as he invested this sum advantageously, he secured a very good income.

"We will leave London and go into the country," said his wife," to some place where the girls can have a little society (society was the ignis fatuus of her life), and also where they will have an opportunity of perfecting their education. Lucille will draw splendidly, and Adele sings quite in the Italian style.

"And Marion ?" suggested her father.

"Is too idle and dull, I fear, to do much. She has no talent of any sort or kind, and will never make a stir in society. She is only fit to marry a country curate, and rear half a dozen of children, on £120 per annum."

Mrs. Gladesdale little thought, when she spoke of the important qualities which were required to do that properly. Her father sighed, but did not contest the point. His wife's word was law; ber wisdom supreme; so he only sighed, and said nothing.

They fixed on a neighbouring county as the scene of their future residence, and a beautiful estate about twenty miles from London becoming vacant by the death of the proprietor, Mr. and Mrs. Gladesdale went to look at it. During their absence, Marion spent her time with me.

"And you will really come with us, dear aunty," she said, for she always called me aunty, or Aunt Lucy; "you will really come with us?"