however trying to a sensitive mind are the slights or the caprices of altered friends, and few things can be more painful, yet she knew that they might be necessary to check the excess of that affection and confidence with which she would have given her whole heart to her cousin, and expected an unbounded and unchangeable return. Matilda had often heard it remarked that our hopes of happiness rest successively on worldly objects, like a bird on the branches of a tree. If he be driven from perch to perch he wings his way at last towards Heaven, and thus while mourning the earliest changes which had afflicted her own heart, she felt that if the cords were cut which bound her most strongly on earth, her hopes and desires might perhaps thus be elevated to a better world.

CHAPTER III.

Où allons nous, Madame ?
Nous ennuyer à la campagne.

THERE is a luxury in being waited for, which seems universally understood by great people, though to the subordinate actors in life it is a pleasure quite incomprehensible and unknown. On the morning of their setting out for Inverness-shire, Eleanor Fitz-Patrick detained her cousin in momentary expectation of her arrival fully as long as personages enjoying a certain degree of self-importance think it usually necessary for those who are considered their inferiors; but at length the open britschska with four horses swept up to the door about half past one, to claim the very unwilling and unwelcome inside passenger who had been booked for the journey.

"These are good travelling hours, Eleanor !" observed Sir Francis, handing Matilda into the carriage, and bidding her an affectionate farewell.

"Yes!" replied the heiress; "papa is already a stage in advance, but I am no admirer of sunrise, when, as some poet beautifully observes

'Like a lobster boil'd, the morn

From black to red begins to turn.'

The only advantage of travelling in my own carriage is, to choose the hours that suit me best."

"True-it is only irrational animals that keep what are vulgarly called rational hours. A young lady of fashion must be distinguished from the common herd who travel in coaches and steam-boats, which all start before the peep of day."

Yes," replied Eleanor, glancing with visible alarm at Matilda's baggage," and in another respect I differ from those public conveyances, in a total incapacity to accommodate many packages besides my own, for the carriage will certainly burst, if we add much more to the load it already carries."

"Shall I order a post-chaise to follow with Matilda's dressing-box?" asked Sir Francis, drily. "You fill up more room in the world now, Eleanor, than in the days when I took Matilda and you, three in a gig, to Argyleshire; and your baggage might then have been tied up, like Mr Dowlas's, in a pocket-handkerchief."

The young heiress made no reply. She always felt a mixture of fear and respect for Sir Francis Howard, whose rallying manner and ready humour had acquired a sort of influence over her which no one else could have possibly preserved. His quick sense of the ridiculous, and unrivalled turn for mimicry, often enabled him to show her up in a way that made Eleanor conscious how absurdly she had acted or spoken ; and frequently, when she could have braved Lady Olivia's affectionate remonstrances, the keen shaft of Sir Francis's eye, and the cutting sharpness of his ready wit, kept her in awe ; and yet she liked him as well as her blunted feelings could enable her to like any one, and enjoyed a frequent war of wit with him, in which species of mental gladiatorship it was difficult to say whose weapons were the brightest, or which came off victorious.

"Have you heard that Barbara set out this morning

"Poor soul!

for Argyleshire?" enquired Sir Francis. she is sadly altered. I declare it is melancholy to see how amiable she has become now! I have lent her Ptarmigan Cottage during pleasure, and we hope she will soon become quite herself again!"

"I hope not, for any body else would be better," replied Eleanor, laughing; "you should change the name to Termagant Cottage, till she abdicates it."

"I shall postpone that alteration till you are settled there," answered Sir Francis, gravely. "You are as pungent as a vinaigrette this morning, Eleanor !"

"There is nothing more dangerous than a bad example."

"Well, adieu! You are longing to be off, I suppose, and to reach the rural plains of Inverness-shire. 'Oh! for a lodge in some vast wilderness-some boundless contiguity of shade!' Eh, Eleanor! Long life to you, then! and take care of my precious Matilda. I grudge you every hour of her society that we lose, for she is the very light of my eyes now; but, my dear girl, write constantly: keep a pen behind your ear, and as long as you are absent I trust we shall hear that Time has had his wings 'parfumées de bonheur.'”

When the carriage stopped in Maitland Street for Miss Marabout, Eleanor turned to her cousin, saying"By the way, Matilda, have you any objection to sit backwards? it would be such a charity! for Miss Marabout is subject to headaches, and it kills me outright, the seat is so narrow, and the back so perpendicular. I have less scruple in venturing this proposal, because you are such a good creature; and we young ladies are seldom promoted to any other side."

"No more are governesses in general; but I shall willingly give up this place, in memory of old times,

when neither you nor I, Eleanor, could dare hardly to sit down in her presence at all," replied Matilda, with her wonted vivacity of look and manner, for she could not help feeling diverted at Eleanor's extreme absurdity.

The heiress gave her cousin a good-humoured, but a rather patronising nod when she vacated her seat; and for some time after the carriage had driven on, Matilda was occupied in realizing to her own mind that the proud, consequential-looking personage opposite, wrapped up in ermine fur and Chantilly lace, with a grave, dignified aspect, and a pompous, commanding voice, could actually be the lively, frolicsome companion of her own juvenile days, with whom she had once lived in the free interchange of every thought, and in the happy confidence of unbounded, and, as she then believed, unalterable affection. "Cease ye from man," thought Matilda; "alas! how early am I taught the frailty of human friendship! By the changeableness of one, and by the death of another, I have equally lost the two who were dearest to me on earth. Oh! may the sorrow of this hour only serve to confirm the more gratefully my dependence on that eternal friend who will never either disappoint or forsake me !”

Mean time Eleanor and Miss Marabout had thrown themselves gracefully back into opposite corners of the britschska, almost buried alive in cloaks and cushions, while they became deeply engaged in an animated discussion of all that every body had said or done for the last few months, during which nothing could exceed the skill and perseverance with which Miss Marabout flattered her ci-devant pupil, unless it were the readiness with which her douceurs were accepted, for frequent practice had taught her to suit the bait to those she