large income, and, in spite of a certain coarseness of manner, probably acquired by the low company he lat terly kept, he is very much liked, and even admired, by the few good people in the society of Cheltenham."

At this moment Tyrrell passed us; he caught my eye, stopped short, and colored violently. I bowed; he seemed undecided for a moment as to the course he should adopt; it was but for a moment. He returned my salutation with great appearance of cordiality; shook me warmly by the hand; expressed himself delighted to meet me; inquired where I was staying, and said he should certainly call upon me. With this promise he glided on, and was soon lost among the crowd.

"Where did you meet him?" said Lady Harriet. "At Paris."

"What! was he in decent society there?"

cr

"I don't know," said I. "Good-night, Lady Harriet; " and, with an air of extreme lassitude, I took my hat and vanished from that motley mixture of the fashionably low and the vulgarly genteel!

CHAPTER XLI.

Full many a lady

I have eyed with best regard, and many a time
The harmony of their tongues hath unto bondage
Drawn my too diligent eyes.

But you,

oh! you,

So perfect and so peerless, are create

Of every creature's best. - SHAKESPEARE.

-

THOU wilt easily conceive, my dear reader, who hast been in my confidence throughout the whole of this history, and whom, though as yet thou hast cause to esteem me but lightly, I already love as my familiar and my friend, thou wilt easily conceive my surprise at meeting so unexpectedly with my old hero of the gambling-house. I felt indeed perfectly stunned at the shock of so singular a change in his circumstances since I had last met him. My thoughts reverted immediately to that scene, and to the mysterious connection between Tyrrell and Glanville. How would the latter receive the intelligence of his enemy's good fortune? was his vengeance yet satisfied, or through what means could it now find vent?

A thousand thoughts similar to these occupied and distracted my attention till morning, when I summoned Bedos into the room to read me to sleep. He opened a play of Monsieur Delavigne's, and at the beginning of the second scene I was in the land of dreams.

I woke about two o'clock; dressed, sipped my chocolate, and was on the point of arranging my hat to the best advantage, when I received the following note:

MY DEAR PELHAM, Me tibi commendo. I heard this morning, at your hotel, that you were here; my heart was a house of joy at the intelligence. I called upon you two hours ago; but, like Antony, "you revel long o' nights." Ah, that I could add with Shakespeare, that you were "notwithstanding up." I have just come from Paris, that umbilicus terræ, and my adventures since I saw you, for your private satisfaction, "because I love you, I will let you know;" but you must satisfy me with a meeting. Till you do, "the mighty gods defend you!"

VINCENT.

The hotel from which Vincent dated this epistle was in the same street as my own caravansary, and to this hotel I immediately set off. I found my friend sitting before a huge folio, which he in vain endeavored to persuade me that he seriously intended to read. We greeted each other with the greatest cordiality.

“But how," said Vincent, after the first warmth of welcome had subsided, "how shall I congratulate you upon your new honors? I was not prepared to find you grown from a roué into a senator.

'In gathering votes you were not slack,
Now stand as tightly by your tack,
Ne'er show your lug an' fidge your back,
An' hum an' haw;

But raise your arm, an' tell your crack

Before them a.'

So saith Burns; advice which, being interpreted, meaneth, that you must astonish the rats of St. Stephen's.' "Alas!" said I; "all one's clap-traps in that house must be baited."

"

Nay, but a rat bites at any cheese, from Gloucester to Parmesan, and you can easily scrape up a bit of some sort. Talking of the House, do you see, by the paper,

that the civic senator, Alderman Wtenham ?"

"I was not aware of it. I suppose he's cramming speeches and turtle for the next season.

"How wonderfully," said Vincent, "your city dignities unloose the tongue; directly a man has been a mayor, he thinks himself qualified for a Tully at least. Faith, the Lord Mayor asked me one day what was the Latin for spouting; and I told him, 'hippomanes, or a raging humor in mayors.'

After I had paid, through the medium of my risible muscles, due homage to this witticism of Vincent's, he shut up his folio, called for his hat, and we sauntered down into the street.

"When do you go up to town?" asked Vincent. "Not till my senatorial duties require me."

"Do you stay here till then?

"

"As it pleases the gods. But, good heavens, Vincent, what a beautiful girl!"

Vincent turned.

stopped.

"O Dea certè," murmured he, and

The object of our exclamations was standing by a corner shop, apparently waiting for some one within. Her face, at the moment I first saw her, was turned full towards me. Never had I seen any countenance half so lovely. She was apparently about twenty; her hair was of the richest chestnut, and a golden light played through its darkness, as if a sunbeam had been caught in those luxuriant tresses, and was striving in vain to escape. Her eyes were of light hazel, large, deep, and shaded into softness (to use a modern expression) by long and very dark lashes. Her complexion alone would have rendered her beautiful, it was so clear, so pure; the blood blushed beneath it, like roses under a clear stream;

if, in order to justify my simile, roses would have the complacency to grow in such a situation. Her nose was of that fine and accurate mould that one so seldom sees, except in the Grecian statues, which unites the clearest and most decided outline with the most feminine delicacy and softness: and the short, curved arch which descended from thence to her mouth, was so fine, so airily and exquisitely formed, that it seemed as if Love himself had modelled the bridge which led to his most beautiful and fragrant island. On the right side of the mouth was one dimple, which corresponded so exactly with every smile and movement of those rosy lips, that you might have sworn the shadow of each passed there; it was like the rapid changes of an April heaven reflected upon a valley. She was somewhat, but not much, taller than the ordinary height; and her figure, which united all the first freshness and youth of the girl with the more luxuriant graces of the woman, was rounded and finished so justly, that the eye could glance over the whole without discovering the least harshness or unevenness, or atom to be added or subtracted. But over all these was a light, a glow, a pervading spirit, of which it is impossible to convey the faintest idea. You should have seen her by the side of a shaded fountain on a summer's day. You should have watched her amidst music and flowers, and she might have seemed to you like the fairy that presided over both. So much for poetical description, it is not my forte!

"What think you of her, Vincent?" said I.

"I say, with Theocritus, in his epithalamium of Helen

'Say no such thing," said I; "I will not have her presence profaned by any helps from your memory."

At that moment the girl turned round abruptly, and