few objects that so much enhance the beauty of woodland scenery) and the equal augmentation of its difficulty, I could not help observing how agitated and preoccupied the little damsel seemed. Her cheek had lost its colour, her step was faltering, and the trembling hand with which she was distributing the corn from her basket could hardly perform its task. Her head was turned anxiously towards the door, as if something important were going forward within the house; and it was not until I was actually by her side, and called her by name, that she perceived me.

The afternoon, although bright and pleasant for the season, was one of those in which the sun sometimes amuses himself by playing at bopeep. The sky had become overcast shortly after I entered the Dingle, and, by the time I had surmounted the last tall jetting bare bough of the oak, some of the branches of which I was fain to scramble over and some to creep through, and had fairly reached the cottage door, a sudden shower was whistling through the trees with such violence as to render both Dash and myself very glad to accept Bessy's embarrassed invitation and get under shelter from the pelting of the storm.

-I dare say you know Jema; he's a good lad and a 'dustrious-and my Bessy there-and she's a good girl and a 'dustrious too, thof I say it that should not say it-have been keeping company, like, for these two years past; and now, just as I thought they were going to marry and settle in the world, down comes his father, the fariner there, and wants him to marry another wench and be false-hearted to my girl."

"I never knew that he courted her, ma'am, till last night," interrupted the farmer. "And who does he want Jem to marry?" pursued the old man, warming as he went on. Who but Farmer Brookes's fine daughter 'Gusta-Miss 'Gusta as they call her-who's just come back from Belford boarding-school, and goes about the country in her silks and her satins, with her veils and her fine worked bags,-who but she! as if she was a lady born like madam there! Now my Bessy

"I have not a word to say against Bessy," again interrupted the farmer; "she's a good girl, and a pretty girl, and an industrious girl. I have not a word to say against Bessy. But the fact is, that I have had an offer of the Holm Farm for Jem, and therefore

but jabber French, and read story-books, and thump on the music! Now, there's my girl can milk, and churn, and bake, and brew, and cook, and wash, and make, and mend, and rear poultry-there are not such ducks and chickens as Bessy's for ten miles round. Ask madam-she always deals with Bessy, and so do all the gentlefolks between here and Belford."

My entrance occasioned an immediate and "And a fine farmer's wife 'Gusta Brookes somewhat awkward pause in a discussion that will make!" quoth the matmaker, interrupting had been carried on, apparently with consider- Master White in his turn. "A pretty farmable warmth, between my good old host, Mat-er's wife! She that can do nothing on earth thew, who, with a half-finished mat in his hand, was sitting in a low wicker chair on one side of the hearth, and a visiter, also of my acquaintance, who was standing against the window; and, with the natural feelings of repugnance to such an intrusion, I had hardly taken the seat offered me by Bessy and given my commission to her grandfather, before I proposed to go away, saying that I saw they were busy, that the rain was nothing, that I had a carriage waiting, that I particularly wished to get home, and so forth-all the civil falsehoods, in short, with which, finding oneself madame de trop, one attempts to escape from an uncomfortable situation.

My excuses were, however, altogether useless. Bessy would not hear of my departure; Farmer White, my fellow-visiter, assured me that the rain was coming down harder than ever; and the old matmaker declared that, so far from my being in the way, all the world was welcome to hear what he had to say, and he had just been wishing for some discreet body to judge of the farmer's behaviour. And, the farmer professing himself willing that I should be made acquainted with the matter, and perfectly ready to abide by my opinionprovided it coincided with his own-I resumed my seat opposite to Matthew, whilst poor Bessy, blushing and ashamed, placed herself on a low stool in the corner of the little room, and began making friends with Dash.

"The long and the short of the matter is, ma'am," quotir old Matthew," that Jem White

"I am not saying a word against Bessy," replied Farmer White; "she's a good girl, and a pretty girl, as I said before; and I am very sorry for the whole affair. But the Holm Farm is a largish concern, and will take a good sum of money to stock it-more money than I can command; and Augusta Brookes, besides what her father can do for her at his death, has four hundred pounds of her own left her by her grandmother, which, with what I can spare, will be about enough for the purpose; and that made me think of the match, though the matter is still quite unsettled. You know, Master Matthew, one can't expect that Bessy, good girl as she is, should have any money

"Oh, that's it!" exclaimed the old man of the mats. "You don't object to the wench then, nor to her old grandfather, if 'twas not for the money?"

"Not in the least," replied the farmer; "she's a good girl, and a pretty girl. I like her full as well as Augusta Brookes, and I am afraid that Jem likes her much better. And, as for yourself, Master Matthew, why I've

known you these fifty years, and never heard | low-played the best rubber, sang the best man, woman, or child speak a misword of you song, told the best story, made the best punch in my life. I respect you, man! And I am and drank the most of it when made, of any heartily sorry to vex you, and that good little man in Belford. Besides these accomplishgirl yonder. Don't cry so, Bessy; pray don't ments, he was eminently agreeable to men of cry!" And the good-natured farmer well-nigh all ranks; had a pleasant word for everybody; cried for company. was friendly with the rich, generous to the poor, never out of spirits, never out of humour, and, in spite of the quips and cranks in which he delighted, never too clever for his company; the most popular person in the place was, be-' yond all doubt, Nat Kinlay.

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No, don't cry, Bessy, because there's no need," rejoined her grandfather. "I thought may hap it was out of pride that Farmer White would not suffer Jem to marry my little girl. But, since it's only the money," continued the old man, fumbling amidst a vast variety of In spite, however, of his universal populariwell-patched garments, until from the pocket ty, and of a gentle tendency to overrate his of some under-jacket he produced a greasy colloquial talents, no attorney in the town had brown leather book- -"since 't is only Miss so little employment. His merits made against 'Gusta's money that's wanted to stock the him in his profession almost as strongly as Holm, why that's but reasonable; and we'll his faults: frank, liberal, open-hearted, and see whether your four hundred won't go as far indulgent, as well as thoughtless, careless, as hers. Look at them dirty bits of paper, daring, and idle; a despiser of worldly wis farmer-they're of the right sort, an't they?" dom, a hater of oppression, and a reconciler of cried Matthew, with a chuckle. "I called 'em strife-he was about the last person to whom in, because I thought they'd be wanted for her the crafty, the overbearing, or the litigious, portion, like; and, when the old matmaker would resort for aid or counsel. The prudent dies, there'll be a hundred or two more into were repelled by his heedlessness and prothe bargain. Take the money, man, can't ye? | crastination, and the timid alarmed at his and dont look so 'stounded. It's honestly levity; so that the circumstance which he told come by, I promise you, all 'dustry and as a good joke at the club, of a spider having 'conomy, like. Her father he was 'dustrious, spun a web over the lock of his office-door (as and he left her a bit; and her mother, she was over the poor-box in Hogarth's famous pic'dustrious too, and she left her a bit; and I, ture), was no uncommon occurrence at his thof I should not say it, have been 'dustrious residence. Except by a few of the poorest all my life; and she, poor thing, is more 'dus- and wildest of his boon companions,-pennitrious than any o' us. Ay, that's right. Give less clients, who lived at his table all the her a hearty kiss, man; and call in Jem-I'll while their suits were pending, and took care warrant he's not far off-and we'll fix the wed- to disappear just before their cause was lost, ding-day over a jug of home-brewed. And madam there," pursued the happy old man, as with most sincere congratulations and good wishes I rose to depart, "madam, there, who looks so pleased and speaks so kindly, may be sure of her mat. I'm a 'dustrious man, thof I say it that should not say it; and Bessy's a 'dustrious girl; and, in my mind, there's nothing beats 'dustry in high or in low."

And, with this axiom from the old matmaker, Dash and I took our leave of four as happy people for by this time Jem had joined the party as could well be found under the

sun.

HESTER.

AMONGST the most prominent of the Belfordians who figured at the Wednesday night's club at the King's Arms, was a certain personage, rather broader than he was long, who was known generally through the town by the familiar appellation of Nat Kinlay. By calling, Nat

"Was, could he help it ?-a special attorney;" by habit and inclination, a thorough good fel

the mysterious looking brass knob, with “Office-Bell" underneath it, at Mr. Kinlay's excellent house in Queen-street, remained unrung from term to term.

Startling as such a circumstance would have seemed to most professional men, it was long before this total absence of profitable employ ment made the slightest impression on Nat Kinlay. The son of an affluent tradesman in a distant county, he had been articled to a solicitor, rather as a step in station, an advance towards gentility, than with any view to the money-making facilities of that lucrative calling. His father, judging from his own frugal habits, thought that Nat, the only child | amongst a large family of wealthy brothers, would have money enough, without making himself a slave to the law; and when the early death of his parents put him in possession of thirty thousand pounds lawful money of Great Britain, besides the great draper's shop in the little town of Cranley where that money had been accumulated,-to say nothing of the stock and good-will, and divers mesSuages and tenements, gardens and crofts, in

and about the aforesaid town-Nat was most decidedly of the same opinion.

But, extravagant in every sense of the word, luxurious in his habits, prodigal in his gene

even the attraction of personal graces; that Elizabeth Chudleigh, the steadiest of the steady, the gravest of the grave, demure and pensive as a nun, should be in love with Nat Kinlay,- seemed to her uncle not merely monstrous, but impossible.

rosity, expensive in his tastes, easy and uncal- suits of art and of literature, should "abase culating as a child, the thirty thousand pounds, her eyes" on a low-born and unlettered probetween building and driving, and card-play-digal many years older than herself, without ing and good-fellowship-(for sporting he was too unwieldy and too idle, or that would undoubtedly have been added to the catalogue of the spendthrift's sins,) the thirty thousand pounds melted away like snow in the sunshine; the produce of the shop, gardens, crofts, messuages, and tenements-even the humble dwelling in which his father had been born, and his grandfather had laid the foundation of the family prosperity in the humble vocation of a tailor, disappeared with equal rapidity; and Nat Kinlay was on the very verge of ruin, when the death of a rich uncle relieved him from his difficulties, and enabled him to recommence his career of dissipation.

Such, however, was the case. And, perhaps, many of the striking discrepancies that existed between them in character and situation tended to foster their mutual affection rather than to check its growth. To Nat, little accustomed to the best female society, the gentle reserve and quiet elegance of Elizabeth, accidentally thrown in his way at the house of a neighbouring gentleman, proved infinitely more captivating than the mere girlish prettiness, or the showy dashing vulgar style of beauty, with which he was familiar; whilst she-Oh! have we not all seen some sage and sedate damsel of six-and-twenty-staid, demure, and coy, as the prude of Pope's and Cibber's days

In the course of a few years his funds were again nearly exhausted, and again he was relieved by the bequest of a doting aunt, whom two of her brothers, indignant at the hope of the house, had made their heiress; and the only lesson that her dutiful nephew drew from this second and near approach of poverty, was a vague confidence in his own good fortune, and that callousness to a particular danger which is the result of repeated escape from the same sort of peril. Good advice, which, of all valuable commodities, is the one most frequently wasted, was particularly thrown away in his case; he trusted in his lucky star -Napoleon himself not more implicitly-and replied to his friendly advisers only by a know-ness so real, that personal beauty seemed as ing wink, a good-humoured nod, and a scrap of some gay Anacreontic:

"Pleased let us trifle life away,

And think of care when we grow old," might have been his motto.

carried off her feet by the mere charm of a buoyant, merry, light-hearted rattle, thoughtless, generous, and good-natured? Alas! the tale is common. And the want of good looks in the hero of the present story (though his head was good, and his figure at four or fiveand-thirty was by no means so unsightly as it afterwards became,) was amply compensated by manners so agreeable, and a kind

nothing in the comparison. There was a spice of romance in the affair too,-a horse that had run away, and had been stopped by the courage and address of the gentleman; so poor Elizabeth said, and thought, that he had saved her life. Could she do less than devote that life to his happiness? And when he vowed that, with her for his companion and guide, he should never go astray again, could she do less than believe him?

This faith in his peculiar good fortune was not diminished in his own eyes, or in those of his flatterers, when, just as Aunt Dorothy's tens of thousands were going where so many tens of thousands had gone before, Nat had Accordingly the lady being of age, her pathe happiness to secure the affections of a very rents dead, and her own fortune absolutely in amiable woman of considerable fortune, and her power, they were married, with no other far greater expectations, since she was the pre- drawback to her happiness than the total and sumptive heiress of her mother's brother, with solemn renunciation of the kind uncle who whom she had resided during the greater part had been to her as a parent. Nat indeed, with of her life, and who was a man of ancient his usual sanguine spirit, made sure of his refamily and large landed property in the neigh-lenting; but Elizabeth, better acquainted with bourhood.

He, it is true, opposed the match as violently as a man well could do. His partialities and his prejudices were equally against such a connexion. His affection for his niece made him dread the misery which must follow a union with a confirmed spendthrift; and his own personal habits rendered him exceedingly averse to parting with one who had been for so many years his principal companion and friend. That a young woman educated by him in a stately retirement, immured amidst the splendid solitude of Cranley Park in the pur

the determined and somewhat stubborn temper which they had to encounter, felt a sad foreboding that the separation was final. She soon, however, forgot this evil in the bustle and excitement of the wedding excursion, and in the total alteration of scene and of habits which ensued upon their settling down into married life.

One of the few stipulations which his fair bride had made was, that Nat should change his residence and resume his profession. Accordingly he bought the house and business of old John Grove, one of the most thriving

practitioners that ever laid down the law in Belford, and soon became an eminent and popular denizen of the good town, where he passed his time much to his satisfaction, in furnishing and altering his already excellent house, throwing out bow-windows, sticking up verandas, adding to the coach-houses and stables, erecting a conservatory, and building a garden-wall. He took a pasture farm about half-a-mile off, stocked it with cattle, built a fancy dairy, and bought a flock.

These were his graver extravagances, his business way of spending money. Society, or rather perhaps company in all varieties and degrees, formed his gayer mode of outlay. Parties at home and parties abroad, club-dinners and tavern-suppers, -meetings of all sorts and degrees, so that they ended in cards and jollity, from the patrician reunions of the hunt, to which his good songs, and good stories, and good-humour gained him admittance, down to the pigeon-shooting matches at the Rose and Crown, of which he was the idol,wine and billiards, whist and punch,-divided his days and nights amongst them; and poor Elizabeth soon found how truly her uncle had prophesied when he had told her, that to marry Nat Kinlay was to give herself to present care and future penury. She did not cease to love him; perhaps she would have suffered less if she had. Selfish, utterly and basely selfish, as he was in pursuing his own ignoble pleasures at the expense of his wife's happiness, there was still that about him which it was impossible to dislike-a sweet and merry temper, a constant kindness of look and of word, and a never-failing attention to procure everything which he even fancied could give her pleasure; so that Elizabeth, who, conscientiously refraining from every sort of personal expense, took care never to express the desires which he would be so sure to have gratified, often wondered how he could have divined her wishes and her tastes. No woman could dislike such a husband.

Be that as it might, the little Hester was firmly established in the house, the darling of the gay and jovial master, and perhaps even more decidedly the comfort of his mild and pensive wife.

Of

Time wore on; Hester was seven, eight, nine years old, and this, the fourth fortune that he had spent, began to wax low. Eliza beth's prudence had somewhat retarded the evil day, but poverty was fast approaching; and, with all his confidence in his own good fortune, and in her uncle's relenting, even Nat began to be conscious of his situation. the forgiveness of her rich relation, indeed, she well knew that there was no hope. Bad news seldom fails to reach those most interested; and she had heard from authority which she could not doubt, that the adoption of Hester had annihilated all chance of pardon. Severely strict in his own morals, the bringing home that motherless innocent seemed in his eyes a dereliction of feminine dignity, of wifely delicacy,-an encouragement of libertinism and vice, which nothing could induce him to tolerate. He was inexorable; and Elizabeth, determined not to abandon the helpless child, loved her the better for the injustice of which she was the object.

In herself, Hester was singularly interesting. Surrounded by comforts and luxuries, and the object of constant and affectionate attention from both Mr. and Mrs. Kinlay, there was about her a touch of thoughtfulness and melancholy, a mild and gentle pensiveness, not a little striking in so young a girl. Nat, when at home, spent more than half his time in playing with and caressing her; but his jokes, usually so exhilarating, failed to enliven Hester: she smiled at them indeed, or rather she smiled at him with fond and innocent gratitude; but no one ever remembered to have heard her laugh; and to read, or rather devour, in the room which she was permitted to call hers, whatever books she could come by, or to wander in the extensive and highlyThey had no child; but after they had been cultivated garden with a beautiful Italian greytwo or three years married, a beautiful little hound belonging to Mrs. Kinlay, or to ramble girl, about four years old, fair as alabaster, with the same graceful companion through the with shining ringlets of the texture and colour picturesque fields of the Dairy Farm, formed of undyed silk, made her appearance in Queen- the lonely child's dearest amusements. Whestreet. They called her Hester; and Mrs. ther this unusual sadness proceeded from her Kinlay said to those of her acquaintance being so entirely without companions of her whom she thought entitled to an explanation, own age, or was caught unconsciously from that the child was an orphan whom Mr. Kin- Mrs. Kinlay's evident depression, and from lay had permitted her to adopt. It was ob- an intuitive perception, belonging to children served that, once when she had made this de- of quick feeling, that beneath an outer show claration before him, the tears stood in his of gaiety all was not going well-or whether eyes, and he caught up the little girl in seem- it were a mere accident of temperament, none ing play, and buried his face in her silky curls could ascertain. Perhaps each of these causes to conceal his emotion. One or two of his might combine to form a manner most unusual old Cranley friends remembered, too, a vague at her age; a manner so tender, so gentle, so story concerning a pretty country-girl in that diffident, so full of pleading sweetness, that neighbourhood. She had died-and some had it added incalculably to the effect of her soft said that she had died in childbed, about four and delicate beauty. Her look seemed to imyears before; and her name had been Hetty.plore at once for love and for pity; and hard