the connection, which cannot now be distant-at himself. Here was a fellow, however, who from least, the connection cannot go on long on the his very boyhood had continually rivalled him same footing. His family position must, in a in some way or other, and always successfully. great measure, determine what is to be done for He, Seacole, after having contemptuously dared him; what in one station of life would be only him to the arena of the world, now fell in with an adequate remuneration, in another would be him again, and instead of finding him the vaextravagant and absurd." grant he was born, or in the mechanical employment to which the ambition of a vagrant's son might be supposed to point, he was encountered by him once more on terms of equality-once more he saw him bar his path like a spectre. After hearing all Adolphus had to say on the subject, Fancourt mused for a moment.

"That is so far true; but Mr. Oaklands is one of those men who make their own position, if they have only a vantage-ground, however slightly elevated, to start from. What you give him is not of so much consequence as you imagine: at least, it will affect only the time he may take to rise in the world, not the rise itself, which, after that first step is gained, will be inevitable. But your question, I see, has some further meaning?"

Why," said he, "this Oaklands must be a fine fellow, and in a dozen or a score of years, if he gets on well in the world, his birth, instead of being looked upon as a stigma, will be conWhy, yes; I have been asking the fool sidered rather as something enhancing his merit. Driftwood about him, and his answers have Till a man does get on, however, such a thing surprised and puzzled me a good deal. You, stands in his way; it is a difficulty to be surwho do not believe in romance, will smile to hear mounted, and his rivals or enemies take advanthat there is a mystery in Mr. Oaklands' birth, tage of it to keep him down as long as they can. and that he is expected to turn out some great Never fancy, Dolphy-for that is a vulgar trapersonage!" Claudia made no reply. Her dition-that this young fellow is to be despised eyes were fixed upon the table before her. There was no perceptible movement of her chest. did not seem even to breathe. Her whole figure conveyed the idea of statue-like rigidity.

because he is a born vagrant; in point of fact he She is to be despised only because he has not yet distinguished himself in money-making, or war, or law, or letters, or art. Without some such "Cold as usual, Claudia!" said the baronet consummation he is nothing, at least, in the stalaughing. "Even this extraordinary announce- tion in which you now find him. There his genment has no effect upon you. But, after all, tlemanly manners and handsome person promote Driftwood is such a fool that there is no compre-him to be merely an agreeable dangler, or one hending him; and, in the present case, it is obvious he does not comprehend himself. All he knows is, that there is a mystery, and that surmises are afloat that Oaklands is not what he seems, or what he has been taught to believe himself to be." Claudia was still mute, still motionless, still statuesque.

of the clever people, as they are called, who are stuck in to give piquancy to the dull parties of idealess fashion. Only fancy Claudia Falcontower thinking seriously of this genius, without a coin in his pocket, without a bay-leaf on his brow! The thing is absurd-more than absurd; why, if you betrayed such a suspicion to her, she would strike you dead at her feet with one flash of her magnificent eyes. But still, although "It is romance," replied Claudia, coldly-there is no possibility of her regarding him as "quite out of my way, you know. Shall I break anything more than a lay-figure, his feelings of a walnut for you?"

"Have you heard me ?" asked her father: "is the matter not worthy of a remark?"

CHAPTER XII.

AN IMPORTANT PROJECT.

hostility-for which I have no doubt you have given abundant cause-may damage you. It is your game, therefore, to detach his hold as well as you can from the family-to put a stop to that personal familiarity between them which might give him opportunity for damaging whispers in the ear of your Eve."

"Could not this be done by a mere touch of Ithuriel's spear, by which is figured Truth? Would the haughty Claudia continue to make a companion of one whom she knew to be a vagrant, poor and unrenowned ?"

THE Albany, everybody knows, is a monastery in Piccadilly, the cloisters of which are inhabited by forlorn single men, who, for some reason or other, have forsworn the sex and the world. Here are bachelors who have been crossed in love, husbands who have been crossed in matrimony, and a state-porter watching the iron gates at either end of the alley of cells. Mr. Fan- "Hum! I don't know. There is a certain court's was a very respectable hermitage, fitted convenience in a man standing alone in the up with everything that could reconcile the re-world, with no circle round him to prevent his cluse to the absence of the world he had lost or forsaken. The pretty little dinner he shared with his kinsman, Seacole, was exquisite for such a refectory; and the claret that followed would probably have stood triumphantly a comparison with the best wine grown for their own use by the holy brethren of the olden time.

Adolphus felt it somewhat difficult to explain to his friend the reason why he had found the scene at the Exhibition so painful to his feelings, and in fact he did not very well understand it

getting into other circles, nobody to hang upon the skirts of his good fortune when he is rising. There is an evil report, you know, about the origin of this Oaklands, which if true-or believed to be true-would be far more damaging than the fact of his being really the foundling of Wearyfoot Common. As the natural son of a half-pay captain and a menial servant, and surrounded, doubtless, by countless relations in the same degree, all watching eagerly for a peep of his head rising above the crowd, our friend, it

strikes me, would have little chance of retaining | ever, that here we are thrown in a great measure the patronage of the Falcontowers."

"You are right, Fancourt!-I see my game, and I will play it out. I hardly remember the particulars, beyond this, that the parentage you refer to was acknowledged by Oaklands himself when a boy, and in my mother's presence. Poringer, however, knows all about it, and for some reason or other, he hates the fellow still worse than I do. How is it that you, who play your cards so well, and know the value of the honors, have never married?"

upon conjecture, for in spite of our manifold experience, we remain to this hour in profound ignorance of the female heart. For this reason we confine ourselves in a great measure, as the reader must have seen, to external phenomena, and for this reason we will at present dogmatize no further than to say that in circumstances of difficulty of any kind whatever, the advance always comes from the woman. And why? Because she is naturally more ingenuous, naturally more courageous, except as regards physical "Simply because I am not the inheritor of a bravery, and naturally more generous than the landed estate like you. I have money enough man. If "advance" is objected to, substitute to do without a wife's fortune, and not money any other expression you please-anything giv enough to desire an heir-rank enough to require ing the idea of a look, a tone, a word, a touch, no matrimonial quarterings, and not rank enough which, occurring at the proper time, shivers the to make it necessary to fortify it by marriage-ice of conventionality, as if by magic, into a sense enough to know that I am well off, and thousand pieces. not sense enough to wish to be better off. But That some such process as this took place, consult your fellow, that's my advice to you. I however gradually, between her and Robert, is admire Poringer prodigiously; it is only circum- certain. Theirs, it is true, was not a love corstances that have made him footman-nature respondence, for it could not have, been so withmust have intended him for a man of fashion." out being a clandestine one; but in their public Leaving Adolphus to the prosecution of his letters there were words and allusions, tremulous plans for detaching Robert from the intimacy of fears, half-hinted hopes, precious to the hearts of the Falcontowers-plans he would have delighted both, and at least enigmas to the captain and in pursuing even if his own personal interest had Elizabeth. The speculations of these worthy not been at stake-we must now look in at souls concerning such passages were listened to Simple Lodge, just to prevent the inmates from by Sara with her head bent down over the paper, slipping out of the reader's memory. The diffi- and her cheeks flushed half with bashful conculty in this case is to relate a history that has sciousness, and half-we must own it-with an no incidents. Sara's was the life of a flower awful inclination to laugh. But there were, likewhich grows without being seen to grow, which wise, it must be said, in her letters, although only waxes in beauty spontaneously and unconscious-occasionally, and always occurring at the graver ly, and the aroma of which comes forth sweeter turns of Robert's fortunes, brief private postand richer every day without exhibiting any ex-scripts. These, however, betrayed no other feelternal token of change. Let it be said, however, ing than that of anxious friendship, and containthat the song which burst forth from her heart ed no words but those of encouragement, consoin the garden carried with it, as an oblation to lation, or advice-advice such as a lofty-minded the heavens, every remains of girlish immaturity. and loving woman may offer to a man, her From that moment she was a thinking, feeling, superior in genius and experience, but struggling comprehending woman, and even her attentions in the toils of the world. to her uncle and aunt, without losing a jot of their fondness, acquired a character of judgment which rendered them a thousand times more valuable. Sara, in fine, no longer passed throughly to the writer into the body of her reply; and

life,

A dancing shape, an image gay,

but a pilgrim of the earth, burdened with its cares, supported by its hopes, and even when its sorrows were heaviest, buoyed up with a generous confidence, which is the heaven of this world, and when sublimed into religious faith, the herald of the world to come.

It may be supposed that her intercommunications with Robert received some modifications as they went on. At first they would be almost suspended by a feeling of bashful consciousness, but gradually, when she became accustomed to her new feelings, the natural ingenuousness of her character would prevail. Robert, although possessing, as she had said herself, the soul of a gentleman, was poor, low in conventional rank, and, O how lonely in the world! This was much. This went a great way in thawing her reserve, for it gave an air of generosity to her advances towards confidence. We admit, how

On a particular occasion, when Robert had written in a strain of much depression, one of these "postscripts" insinuated itself unconscious

when the letter was read aloud, as usual, to the captain and Elizabeth, it excited a good deal of speculation. It ran thus: "I do not see why you should fancy yourself hanging loose upon the world as one without a profession, while you are supporting yourself by your pen. Thoughts, although immaterial themselves, are the rulers of matter; there is not an idea thrown off by an author which has not an effect of some kind upon the minds, and, therefore, upon the actions of those who read. Every book finds a fit audience, however few-an audience so constituted as to realize the impression it is calculated to convey. A single leaf torn out, and drifting on the wind to the roadside, may contain something to sink into the heart or fasten upon the imagination of the curious passer-by, and fructify there either for good or evil. May it not be from some unconscious apprehension of this fact that the Mohammedans pick up from the ground every scrap of paper they see, lest it contain the name of God? Yes, Robert, thoughts are facts, and

he who deals in them is no dreaming hermit, ab- | I think, in his printed letter, he called it poigstracted from the business of life, but a sharer in nant affliction-we'll give him back as much of the scenes silent, it may be, and invisible in his it as Bob doesn't want, and speak comfortably person, yet exercising a palpable influence upon to the poor soul, and ask him down here to have the action. Go on, then, in good heart. Be as a run upon the Common. Hey, Elizabeth ?" proud of the work of your brain as you would Elizabeth gave her assent as calmly as if the be of the work of your hands; and when some matter in question was a forenoon walk, and glorious thought struggles into birth, think that then went on industriously with her knitting, as there are those who will receive it with a flush if thinking it was necessary to finish the piece, of the cheek and a catching of the breath, as lest she should be called upon to set out after something their souls have prophesied of-some- dinner. thing they have panted for, even as the hart panteth after the water-brooks.' Here Sara stopped with a true flush and a true catching of the breath, for she had nearly been betrayed by her enthusiasm into reading what, in her womanly generosity, she had added: "I judge from myself as an average specimen of humanity, for I can truly say that I never knew what nobleness slept, useless and apathetic, in my own intellectual nature, till it was kindled up by contact with yours."

“Hold!” cried the captain; "read that again." This was not an unusual exclamation of his; but Sara complied falteringly, for she felt that a postscript had no business to be in the middle of a letter.

Sara was even more tranquil, for the idea came upon her with a paralyzing suddenness; but by and by a revulsion took place, and she was thrown into a nervous flutter, which made her take refuge, as was her wont in moments of strong emotion of any kind, in the recesses of the garden. Here she walked and mused for some time, now indulging in a delicious dream, and now starting with a feeling of incredulity, the whole thing seeming a wild impossibility. She at length, however, became accustomed to the idea; and when gliding towards the house, she was overheard-for the kitchen window was opencrooning a low happy song, which, when the sound died away, Molly straightway took up like an echo, as her thoughts floated across Wearyfoot Common.

It was Sara's wish to add a postscript to her letter, informing Robert of their intention; but this the captain peremptorily overruled. The time, he said, was not yet fixed; and at any rate, he was strongly desirous of seeing how Bob would look when he saw them all on a sudden in London. This idea took a strong hold of the veteran's imagination, and he was frequently seen to indulge in a little inward cachinnation as

"What do you think of that, Elizabeth?" "It is the opinion of Sumphinplunger," replied the virgin, "that thoughts are as substantial as any other existing things. We know that the invisible wind is substantial, because it knocks down the chimney-pots, and a thought must be so, too, because it hurries men along, in some particular course, more violently than the wind itself. When the subject is better understood we shall probably be able to measure the potency of thought like that of steam, by so many horse-it occurred to him. power, or even try it in scales like a ponderable substance, and affix its value by the poundweight. When this is the case, Sumphinplunger himself will be better appreciated, for men will be able to estimate more correctly the prodigious substantiality of his vapor, and the sublime ponderosity of his reflections."

"That's very true, Elizabeth," said the captain; "that's very true-only I doubt whether the dealers in such substantial articles, even if these were as thick as mud, and as heavy as lead, would make anything by them. They all live in Grub street, every mother's son of them, and come out at night to lie on the bulkheads."

The family were busy for some considerable time in preparing for this important expedition; the captain and Elizabeth occupied with abstract speculations on the subject, and Sara and Molly with the work of the head and hands. The day, always too short for Sara, now dwindled into the briefest imaginable span; and she would have grudged the repose of the night if she had not sunk, the moment her head was laid upon the pillow, into a profound unconsciousness, from which she awoke only when her eyelids were touched by the first beams of the sun. She was the housekeeper, it has been said—and more than that, for Molly required teaching both by precept and example. Sara had learned only some knick-knackeries of cookery under the former régime, and when Mrs. Margery abdicated, she was obliged to study the whole art in books that "No! I am sorry for that. What are the she might teach and experimentalize in the poor fellows to do? They can't be walking the kitchen. The captain liked passing well a nice streets for ever and ever. Couldn't the govern- dinner, and the necessity for parting with the ment do something for them? I would subscribe mysterious cook had cost him many a secret a little myself if I thought it would be of any pang; but although a little gloomy and suspiuse. But I'll tell you what we must do, Saracious at first, he soon became wonderfully reconwe must go up to London ourselves and see after ciled to the joint workmanship of his niece and poor Bob. You are of age now, and there must Molly, and at length declared frankly that any be lots of things, you know, to sign, seal, and difference he could detect was on the favorable deliver. As for my agent, the fine fellow is pay- side. Sara rivalled Mrs. Margery in other acing a good dividend after all, and I must go to complishments, too-ironing and clear-starchtown at any rate about that. But we must n't ing; and Molly, who was a famous hand at the take it all from him after what he has suffered-suds, delighted in washing-day, since it gave her

"My dear uncle," expostulated Sara, "there is no Grub street now; it is changed to Milton street, and as for bulkheads, there is no such thing to lie upon."

still more of her young mistress's company than usual. And did not Sara like it too-just? Never was there a pair of happier girls seen than when the one was plying her smoothing-iron, and the other standing resolutely at the tub, with the smoking froth flying wildly about her red arms, and both every now and then suspending operations to fly out into the garden and lay down on the smooth green a score of white pieces to grow still whiter in the sun.

"What is that you have got half under your apron ?"

"O sir, it's only a letter."

"Why don't you give it, then?" She handed it to Sara.

"This is for you, Molly," said her young mistress. "Why do you give me your own letter, and before you have even broken the seal?"

"O miss, do read it for me after dinner; pray, do. I wouldn't open it for the world-the last did you so much good!" Sara blushed celestial rosy red at this imputation; but the captain I see ye, ye profane ones, all the while, hearing it was from Mrs. Margery, would permit Because my homely phrase the truth would tell. no delay, as it was sure to contain news of RobYou are the fools, not I

Ye smile,

for the intellectual and accomplished Sara was refined, not vulgarized, by these humble labors, and by the accompanying gushes of natural and womanly feeling welling from her heart, and, like the exhalations from the snowy linen on the green, rising a purifying oblation to the skies. Sara was a capital gardener, too, in vegetables as well as flowers; and being the marketing woman of the family, she knew and could name every human flower in the village, and was a light-bringing visitor in every dwelling, from the respectable bakery to the hut of the indigent

widow.

ert;
and Sara, nothing loath, desired the cover
to be put again upon the chicken, and read as fol-
lows:-" DEAR MOLLY This comes hoping
you are well, being the same myself, and to
thank you for your kind letter, addressed by
Miss Sara, which I received duly, but being writ
ten by you, Molly, which I could not read one
word of it, good, bad, or indifferent. So all the
news of Wearyfoot I got was from Mr. Porin-
ger, who came to make proposals of marriage,
and drink tea with me-think of that! He
wanted me to be a landlady, with red ribbons
over the ears; and he was so bitter when I told
him I would do no such foolishness, and called
Master Robert so many names, that as soon as
ever he was gone, I burst out a-crying.

"I tell you what, Sara," said the captain one day, after having watched her through some of "Master Robert gave up the cabinet-making her ordinary operations, ended by her sitting long ago, and goes out almost every morning down to dinner, officiating as chaplain, and tak like the first gentleman in the land. My cousin ing up the knife and fork to dissect a chicken-Driftwood says he is a unanimous writer, which "I tell you what, Sara, you bring to my recol- means that doesn't put his name to it; but Maslection the nun of Torrajos as distinctly as if I ter Robert never says a word to nobody himself, had seen her only yesterday!" "The nun of Torrajos?" repeated Sara, puz-if it isn't coming out as fast as ever it can! I zled.

which he is quite right to do. O Molly Jinks,

think it is a family of Barrow knights he belongs "Yes-a real nun. It's worth hearing, Eliza- to, or at least they are some of the kinsfolks, for beth." Elizabeth laid down her knife and fork, they have been making all the inquiries about and turned upon her brother her light gray eyes him that people do about fondlings who have with the curiosity of a wax-figure. "I was ac- strawberries upon their left side, and he goes quainted with that nun," proceeded the veteran; about with the ladies arm-in-arm, as close as "I knew her very well indeed, for I saw her sev-brother and sister. There is a lord, too, who is eral times, and I am almost sure she noticed me another relation; and it was in one of their once. Well, you see, the convent was burned, and the poor things routed out, and this nun was waiting in a shed till a mule could be got for her. Now, if I had known Sara then-well, well! The nun, you see, was sitting on a bench, with her hood hanging over her face, and her hands crossed over her bosom; and there she was--no, she wasn't laying out the clothes on the green; in point of fact there was no green. But she was-no, she wasn't digging in the garden, for there was no garden to dig in: that accounts for it. But she was-no, not exactly patting the little girls' heads, and giving their grandmothers sixpences, for there were no little girls, and no grandmothers; and the nun, poor young woman, hadn't sixpence in the world; she was, in fact, doing nothing, nothing at all, and SO-- There's Molly, I declare! What do you want, Molly? What are you astonished about now? It's a hard case that I must always have to break off my story in the middle!"

"O sir," said Molly deprecatingly, "I only wanted to see if you wanted anything."

houses that Mr. Poringer found me out, by means of a picture of me that Master Robert had lent them to put in their drawing-room. There is also Mrs. Doubleback, a lady of the first fashion, who would give her eyes to have him for one of her daughters, and who has sent him an invitation to a grand ball. But he looks higher, I can tell Mrs. D., for all her fashion; and good right he has, for if there ever was a born gentleman in this world, his name is Master Robert Oaklands. So no more at present, Molly Jinks, but be sure I will write again the moment it comes to pass, and I am always your obedient friend,

MARGERY OAKLANDS."

This letter was the subject of much conversa tion between the captain and his sister, although the former could not very well comprehend, at first, how a woman of the name of Sall could have turned out to be a baronet's lady. As nis mind, however, became accustomed to the idea, he could not undertake to affirm that the thing was impossible, more especially when he recol

air of a superior addressing a dependant. If her father had treated him in this way, the conneotion between them would at once have terminated; and the caprice even of a young lady is not a little galling to the masculine, in circumstances of great inequality of rank and fortune.

lected a circumstance that had occurred in his own regiment. We do not feel ourselves called upon, however, to lay the details of this circumstance before the reader, for it does not appear clearly how the fact of the drummer's wife referred to turning out to be the fifer's sister, can throw any very extraordinary light upon the point in question. As for Elizabeth, she was of opinion with Sumphinplunger, that in a state of being where the materials of the body are un-worker he could always command remunerative dergoing a constant process of change, it must be a very difficult thing to establish any point of identity-or, in fact, to tell who is who at all. She hoped, however, that if any young man (hypothetically speaking) turned out unexpectedly to be a lord, he would never forget that there was nothing more than an empty title between him and a vagrant.

Sara appeared to listen in silence to these speculations, but in reality she was communing with her own unquiet heart. Whatever the course might be, it was evident that Robert was now in a position which deprived the proposed expedition to London of every pretext of generosity. It was one thing to visit him when he was low in station and depressed in mind, and another thing to force a country girl upon his society when that was courted by the noble and the fashionable. There seemed, at length, to be something even indelicate in the idea of this journey, and a stranger, observing her manner. might have been curious to know what there was in the prospects of her friend to account for such obvious discontent and depression.

But Molly was curious about nothing of the kind, for she saw at a glance what was the matter, and made up her mind on the instant that the whole male sex was a concrete mass of selfishness and deception. The baker paid handsomely for this generalization; his loaf that day was thrown back to the culprit with indignation. "What is the matter, Molly?" cried he in

alarm.

"Crusty!" replied Molly, and she walked back to the house like an empress at the Cobourg, with the crown upon her head, the sceptre in her hand, her train borne by two pages, and her nose commercing with the skies.

CHAPTER XIII.

A SURPRISE.

ROBERT was not a little cheered by Sara's views of the dignity of the literary profession. But his position was far from being an agreeable one, and from a cause which he could not at one time have anticipated. Miss Falcontower, it turned out, was not to be relied on as a friend, and for that reason it might be necessary to doubt her as a patroness. There was now a caprice in her manner which he would at once have attributed to bad temper, had he not known how completely her temper was under the control of | her judgment. Sometimes she was gentle, submissive, confiding; and when he met her next, with the warmth and frankness of friendship, she would look at him with haughty surprise, and direct his attention to the work in hand with the

Under such little annoyances, Robert was supported only by the consciousness of his own real independence, by his knowledge that, as a handemployment; while his rebellious spirit was kept down by the prudential consideration, that he had no legal hold upon Sir Vivian for the promised reward of his services. This reward was now no longer only alluded to in hints, but described in express terms as one of those public appoint ments which, either through the employment of a deputy or otherwise, leave the holder a good deal the master of his time. The precise nature of the appointment was not stated, nor was the amount of the salary; but a very moderate sum would have satisfied both the ambition and prudence of the aspirant, since he had determined, now that he had fairly tried his strength, to trust, if necessary, to authorship for everything beyond mere subsistence. Independently of such considerations, his submission to the caprices of Claudia was influenced by the feelings it is natural for a man to entertain for a young, beautiful, and accomplished woman; and on one occasion, when a more than usually haughty remark had escaped from her lips, he fixed upon her a look so full of sadness, that even she was melted.

"Forgive me, Mr. Oaklands," said she; "I have been hasty and thoughtless. There is so much in what you call conventional life to disturb the mind, that I sometimes wonder whether it is worth the sacifice it costs! You wonder at nothing; you are always serene, except when stirred by the inspirations of genius; and even at this moment, instead of resenting what I have said as an insult, you look upon me with a pity that almost makes me weep - for myself! Come, it is only the incrustation, you know, that is hard and cold; there is warmth and softness within, after all."

"You may vex me a little sometimes," said Robert, taking her proffered hand, "but you cannot change my sentiments of gratitude for your generous notice, or my admiration of the thousand great and brilliant qualities of your mind. The incrustation is even now yielding, or you would not acknowledge its existence. O, Miss Falcontower, be yourself your own deliverer! Break it in pieces by the force of your own character; dissolve it in the love of your own woman's heart; and dissipating the narrow conventions of caste that serve as prison walls, give a grand and noble spirit to the universe! Will you do this? will you try? Do you promise?" He looked close into her eyes, with a gaze that would take no denial; Claudia flushed as she felt his warm breath upon her cheek; but with an enthusiasm akin to his own, she answered:

"I will try I do promise!" He raised suddenly the fingers, that trembled sensibly in his, to his lips, and kissed them fervently; then, ashamed of the boyish enthusiasm that had prompted so unconventional an action, fell backi