You

gusta; "affecting philosophy in this way. know that you were delighted with the good news which the last overland brought you: and yet now you cry 'oh! oh!'"

"Of course I was delighted," said Peregrine, rallying-" of course, I am truly delighted!"

"Ah!" rejoined Augusta, "perhaps you are right after all, not to betray your feelings too much before strangers."

"Strangers! What my own dear sister a stranger?" exclaimed Peregrine Pultuney; and, certainly, if she had been one, the little proceeding with which the exclamation was accompanied, would have struck her as somewhat extraordinary, to say the least of it.

"I wonder what your little girl would say, if she were to see you going on in this extraordinary

manner."

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Nothing," returned Peregrine.

"She would be struck dumb with astonishment you think: but we are wasting the morning sadly. I wish you would finish that picture."

"Very well, I will-that I will-any thing for my dear sister"-returned Peregrine; "but you must sing to me as I work. I have never yet heard my own verses, which I made you on purpose to set to music."

"I have not finished them long," said Augusta? "I was not pleased with my work at first, and then I altered it again and again, without satisfying myself after all."

"I dare say that you have done your part very well," said Peregrine, "but I am sadly ashamed of mine."

"You need not be, indeed.

Will
Will you open the

piano? Thank you, my dear brother,"-and Augusta Sweetenham began in a low, clear, most expressive voice

I.

"Oh! do not curse him, mother, for the evil he has done,
I cannot bear to hear you curse my once beloved one:
You know I have forgiven him, sweet mother do the same,
For he was sorely tempted, and he was not much to blame.

II.

He might have been more kind to me-he might have been more true

I know that he has done a thing it is a sin to do.

But he was very young, mother, and she was very fair,
So stifle now the swelling curse, and offer up the prayer.

III.

“He loved me dearly once, he did—I was his soul's delight—
He said I was, a thousand times, and I believed him quite—
I do believe him still, and think I should have been his bride,
If you had never driven him to wander from my side.

IV.

"You know I would have clung to him-I would in weal

or woe,

You know I would have gone with him where e'er he pleased

to go:

He wished me then, indeed, mother, to be his 'little wife"-
And said I was-I knew it then-the one hope of his life.

V.

"But you forbade him then, mother-you said that he was

poor,

And sadly he, a blighted man, pass'd from our cottage-door;

He promised still to love me, but another, fairer came,

And tempted him-oh! do not curse; he was not much to blame.

VI.

"Perhaps he could not help it-oh! perhaps he was betray'dI do not think he could have quite forgot the little maid, (I like to use his very words) who loved him ere he went, In search of foreign riches, to that far-off continent.

VII.

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'They flatter'd him and dazzled him, and very weak is youthPerhaps had I been tempted thus, it might have shook my

truth:

I do not think it would, but still, we know not what we are,
Until the tempter comes, mother-—and she was very fair.

VIII.

"I think that I am dying, but I wish to fall asleep,

So, dearest mother, dry your tears, I must not have you weep: You know that had I gone with him to that far eastern shore, You would not then perchance have seen your little daughter

more.

IX.

"Forget then that he wrong'd me-forget he was untrueAnd think of me on summer days, when all the sky is blue: Think of me, mother, living there in that serener clime, And bless the man who sent your child to heaven before her time."

Perhaps our readers will guess what was in Peregrine's mind at the time of his composing this

song. We need not say what reality suggested the thought of this fictitious woe. He ought indeed to have been ashamed of himself, but we are almost afraid that he was not.

CHAPTER XIV.

In which our Hero makes a Discovery, and finds himself in a Dilemma.

PEREGRINE PULTUNEY spent the whole of that morning at Mrs. Sweetenham's, and tiffed there, as, indeed, he always did, when he paid his dear friends a visit. The durwan knew well enough, that when Pultuney sahib once passed in he would not pass out again till some where about "driving time," whilst the bearers said to one another that Missybaba was always very kush indeed, when Pultuney sahib came from Dum-Dum, to spend the day with their young mistress. If a native house-servant were to write his reminiscences, and give his opinions in full of all that passed in the different families he had attended, as singularly amusing a work would be produced as has ever yet emanated from

man.

It was about six o'clock in the evening, and the sun which had been all day shining in the full fierceness of its unclouded splendour, scorching up the