spoke to you! I have heard you call him Harpocrates, the walking gentleman, and twenty other names, to indicate his perpetual silence."

"Yes-but every man in the world has a different way of being in love, and Sir Alfred's is not loquacious. True love. seldom is talkative; and gentlemen often speak least to those they think most about. For instance, Sir Alfred addressed more of his conversation to you than to me--but the manner is everything on these occasions, and I would have been quite mortified if he had seemed as much at ease with me as he

was with you. Charlotte Clifford carried on a flirtation all last winter with a gentleman who never even ventured on being introduced to her. She remarked him frequently watching her when she danced-he always contrived to be opposite to her at dinner parties, and very constantly passed by her windows in the forenoon."

"You cannot be serious, Eleanor! for I never heard a case worse argued in my life! As long as the gentleman looked in health he was probably thriving on hope, and if he had died it would have been of despair."

"Poor Charlotte certainly has a slight hallucination of intellect upon that subject, for she is so continually expecting to be fallen in love with," replied Eleanor, laughing. "She is, as your mother used to say,' a silly flirt, who is good for nothing but to be married.' I have always observed that it makes a girl intolerably conceited to be, as she is, the best looking of three plain sisters, for parmi les aveugles un borgne est roi, and if there is but one eye in a family there must be always a beauty among them. Do you believe, Miss Marabout that Charlotte has really refused Sir Colin Fletcher ?"

"It is difficult to say; but no man could be worse spared in society than poor Sir Colin, for he has such a philandering way that every young lady of his acquaintance gives out annually she has refused him; and I make a principle of believing them all.”

Charlotte Clifford is never acquainted with any young lady for an hour without asking to be her confidante, and on these confidential occasions there must be something to tell; but she has scarcely her equal in the world for getting up a romantic story impromptu. She gave me a splendid edition of Sir Colin's disappointment, and then asked me to return a Roland for an Oliver by serving up poor Lord Alderby"

"Those who confess a petty theft to their friends expect to be told of a murder in return;" said Miss Marabout, complaisantly; "and you have already a multitude to answer for. I understand that we are to have a visit from that diverting vagabond, Mr. Grant,' as Lady Susan Danvers calls him."

"Yes," replied Eleanor, slightly coloring, "we could not be off asking him, because he acts as Sir Alfred's second in canvassing the neighboring county, and they are quite inseparable. Mr. Grant's little property marches' with mine, though we do not march long together, as his whole estate is scarcely so extensive as one of my largest farms. Yet you would be astonished what influence he has acquired in the neighborhood, as well as on his uncle Sir Evan Grant's extensive property near mine. All my people talk of his old descent, and his high principles and extensive benevolence, as if he were really a man of consequence."

"Mr. Grant may say, like Sir Lucius O'Trigger, though the mansion-house and dirty acres have slipped away, our honor and the family pictures remain as fresh as ever,” observed Miss Marabout, with a contemptuous laugh.

"I shall not be sorry to see him back, however," added Eleanor; "he amuses me beyond measure; and besides, when Sir Alfred Douglas and Mr. Grant started off with one accord to the continent, it really seemed as if all my hangers-on had struck work at once."

"You really do task them very hard, and hold out but little hope of future reward," replied Miss Marabout, in her usual fawning tone. "Positively Lord Alderby's attentions to your white poodle are quite beyond praise."

"Poor dear Blanco! it will be my greatest joy on returning home to meet him again," exclaimed Eleanor, affectedly. "He sent me a wag of his tail by the last letter I had from the housekeeper, and Lord Alderby has certainly been an admirable tutor. Blanco sits at the piano, and makes sounds not much more discordant than Lady Susan Danvers, when she sings her only song, 'Di Tanti Palpiti;' and I am told, when you ask the dear dog what he would do for papa, he barks like a fury; but if he is asked to show what he would do for me, he falls down dead. That was really no bad idea of gallantry for an elderly gentleman like Lord Alderby to teach him."

"If you could only grind his lordship young again, and get a carpenter's plane to diminish his enormous physiog

nomy," said Miss Marabout, "he might be, with the earl's coronet, a very endurable person. What a pity it is that such a man should ever grow old; but I remember our hearing, last time he dined at Barnard Castle, that the only tooth in his head was aching; and he is accused of being rheumatic, which shows him to be very much broke. In short, it seems like summer and winter when you and he are together."

"Did you ever hear the fable," asked Matilda, "that once upon a time, Cupid and Death having fallen asleep, Mercury very mischievously mingled their arrows, which accounts for young people sometimes dying, and for very old people falling in love?”

CHAPTER IV.

"The yew-tree lent its shadows dark,
And many an old oak, worn and bare,
With all its shiver'd boughs, was there."

DURING the progress of their journey, in that singularly bleak and desolate stage between Dalnacardoch and Dalwhinny, the evening had nearly closed in, when Matilda was surprised to observe a well-mounted equestrian, in a long horseman's cloak, and very much muffled up, who rode alongside of the britschska, and stared incessantly at the whole party, as if he were resolved to identify them; but the instant that Eleanor perceived the stranger, she let down her veil, put up her parasol, and looked at Miss Marabout, who immediately did the same, while they began to exchange a few whispering exclamations of surprise and annoyance. Matilda rapidly ran up quite a little romance in her own mind, as to who this mysterious incognito might possibly be, and she thought his appearance fitted him admirably to act the villain of the piece. He had a dark, Schedoni-looking countenance, and his large eyes were so extremely prominent, that, whenever he winked, it seemed an equal chance whether his eyeballs were shut in or shut out; he was apparently about fifty years of age, but still in the vigor of his strength, and rode extremely well. It is astonishing, when people are travelling, how intense is their curiosity to know the name of every individual who may happen to lodge at the same inn, or to pass on the road. Matilda had wearied herself with conjectures about the probable rank of their fellow-traveller, when, next morning, Sir Richard mentioned, in a tone of apprehension to Eleanor, as if he anticipated an explosion of indignant surprise, that he had "accidentally met Armstrong, who offered to breakfast with them at the next stage." This intelligence was received in angry silence, and Matilda then remembered to have heard very frequent complaints from her cousin, that an old friend of Sir Philip's had almost forced himself into Barnard Castle during the previous sum

mer, and steadily kept his position there in defiance of every stratagem which Eleanor's ingenuity could suggest to dislodge him. Matilda had laughed often at the stories she heard of the heiress's contrivances to affront him out of the house, and of the dogged unconsciousness with which her hints and sarcasms were all received by the object of them; and she could scarcely help smiling, when at length Mr. Armstrong entered their sitting-room with a sort of awkward swagger which is usually assumed by those who are doubtful of their welcome and determined to brave the worst. Eleanor gave him a look of tall contempt, and scarcely bent her head in return for a bow of almost exaggerated respect with which the intruder saluted her. Not a word passed between them; yet Matilda could not but observe an expression of fierce malignity which glittered for a moment in the large prominent eye of Mr. Armstrong while he bent it on Eleanor's haughty countenance and then turned to Sir Richard, who received his guest with that air of easy, good-natured hospitality which nothing could alter.

Few words passed between them, however, as both gentlemen had good travelling appetites; and now began "the war of waiters, the wreck of butter, and the crash of eggshells," while Mr. Armstrong "troubled" Eleanor for as many cups of tea as if he had been Dr. Johnson. Towards the close of breakfast, when Miss Marabout accidentally addressed Miss Howard by name, Mr. Armstrong suddenly started round, with an expression of surprise, and held his tea cup suspended in his hand, while his large eyes became fixed upon Matilda, and he repeated the surname again, as if to assure himself of her identity, while she looked at him in return with astonishment to perceive the sensation which had been so unaccountably occasioned; and Eleanor whispered to Miss Marabout, in a tone of satirical wonderQuite a dramatic start! It was really equal to Kean in Macbeth!"

Mr. Armstrong instantly made an effort to recover himself on hearing this remark; but Matilda observed, with perplexity, that frequently during the progress of breakfast he stole an examining glance towards the place where she sat, and still the "wonder grew" why her name should be an object of such peculiar interest to a person whom she was never conscious of having met before.

When the travellers were about to resume their journey, Matilda was unexpectedly accosted by Mr. Armstrong, who