boy. He really loved and had been splendidly deluded. Who can say that the act was unkind, which was laden, in its issue, with so much bliss?

But it was too short-lived, as all great happiness is a noise was heard at the cabin-door-" Hush!" cried the damsel, disengaging herself from the embraces of the enamoured youth; and as she spoke the noise became more distinct-it was somebody turning the handle of the door-somebody seeking for admittance.

"What are we to do?" faltered the young lady; "it is my sister: what are we to do?"

Doleton made no answer-he only trembled very much.

"Who's there?" cried Lucretia.

"I-only I-let me in," answered Miss Adela Gowanspec.

"Wait a minute-I'll come in a second," and as she said this, she flung open a large chest, that had only a few sheets and table-cloths at the bottom, whispered to Doleton to jump in, and, as she helped him, kissed her supposed lover on the cheek.

Doleton obeyed as quickly as the trembling of his limbs would let him-the lid was shut downthe key turned and deposited in Miss Lucretia's pocket, and then, but not till then, her sister Adela was admitted without more delay.

CHAPTER XVII.

In which the Nervous Youth is rescued from his perilous Situation, and the Hastings arrives in Soundings.

WE left, at the conclusion of our last chapter, Mr. Gentleman Cadet Doleton, in full possession of Miss Lucretia Gowanspec's linen-chest, a locality which no person, either male or female, would select of his own free will to pass the evening in, on ordinary occasions; but which, nevertheless, to any one, who has been four months on board ship, is not, after all, so very strange a residence, for a cabin of ordinary dimensions, is little more than a chest on a large scale, with an eyelit hole or too in it, for the purpose of letting in the water whenever the sea happens to be rough.

That Cadet Doleton enjoyed his situation in the linen-chest we by no means take upon ourselves to affirm, but it is very certain that he suffered from mental inquietude much more than from bodily uneasiness. It was as hot as the Black hole of Calcutta, and his limbs were dreadfully cramped, but it is a question whether he was conscious of the heat

or the cramps, so deplorable was the terror that possessed him. The perspiration streamed down his forehead and issued copiously from every pore of his skin; but it is doubtful whether the outward heat or the inward fear were the more powerful sudorific of the two. What his thoughts were in this awful conjuncture it is almost impossible to say, so confused and phantasmagoric was the nature of them; but amongst the most prominent of the images that stood out of the chaotic mass, were skeletons, sharks, and cats-of-nine-tails, looking hideously and threateningly terrific. He pictured to himself the possibility of being left, like Lord Lovel's bride, for years at the bottom of the linen chest, then of being cast into the ocean like the Old Man of the Sea, and again, of being flogged at the gang-way by the boatswain's mate for the high crimes and misdemeanours he had committed. It seemed to him that discovery was inevitable. Somebody had entered the cabin, and he heard a confused murmur of voices. Perhaps they were talking about him— perhaps the discovery had already been made. He longed for utter annihilation at once; for death, by suffocation or drowning, or something. He tried not to breathe, lest he should be heard-not to move, lest he should betray himself-he felt some cockroaches creeping over his face, and they seemed to him to be the size of tortoises; yet he durst not brush them off,-he durst not scream as he fain would have done, for he hated a cockroach. Per

haps too there were rats in the box. He had read a horrible story in some magazine about an officer who had been devoured by rats in the vaults of some church or other. Perhaps that might be his fate. How dreadful!-Or just as bad, to be devoured by cockroaches. Who could say that might not happen, more improbable things had often come to pass?

Bishop Hatto was eaten up by rats, and Mr. Southey had written a poem about it. Perhaps he might be eaten up by cockroaches, and somebody might write a poem about him. More unlikely things had happened before, but that was not the worst of the business. Better to be eaten by cockroaches than to be detected in his present position. He might be tried and perhaps hanged for burglariously entering a dwelling-house; or else he might be shot by Miss Gowanspec's brother, or tried by a court-martial, for conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman, in entering a young lady's sleeping-room. Who could say that they might not try him on board-ship, and sentence him to be shot out of a gun? Who could say-but here his alarm reached its climax, and he went off into a sort of a swoon, in which he saw all manner of hideous faces grinning at him in ghastly derision.

In the mean time, Miss Adela Gowanspec, having gained admission into her cabin, was putting to her sister, in the most innocent way possible, a number of very searching questions, which Miss Lucretia,

crafty as she imagined herself, nay, crafty indeed as she was, found no great facility in answering. Moreover Miss Adela, for some reason or other, was not in one of her most amiable humours; and, being the elder sister, like most other elder sisters, she thought she had the prescriptive right of rating Miss Lucretia as soundly as she liked upon every occasion. The present opportunity was one too favourable to the display of her prerogative of seniority to be passed over without improving upon it, so Miss Adela began, upon entering the room, in a sharp tone of voice, to ask her sister why she had kept her waiting at the door.

"Because it was bolted," answered Miss Lucretia, delivering herself of this self-evident truth, for the sole purpose of gaining time to consider what answer it was next advisable to give.

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"I know that," returned Miss Adela, warmly, "you need not have told me that; but why did you keep me waiting? You might have answered when I tapped."

"I was engaged, Adela," replied Miss Lu

cretia.

But as this answer was of too vague a nature to satisfy the elder spinster, she desired to be informed more specifically of the nature of the business her sister was engaged upon. The question was not so difficult of solution as it may appear to be at the first glance; at all events, whether difficult or not, Miss Lucretia Gowanspec answered it off-hand, and what