Every body laughed at this declaration of the choleric but good-natured Colonel.

"I will answer for that," cried General Montgomery, "since the day that you knocked the man overboard in the Mediterranean, and then jumped into the sea to save his life at the risk of your own, when the vessel was running nine

knots an hour."

"Yes, I remember it," said Colonel Pennington in his roughest tone. "The fellow deserved to be thrown into the sea, but not to be drowned, at least by me; he loved me, however, all his life after that affair."

"A curious recipe to beget love," said Lord Mowbray; "but it had its admirers, though few imitators, I conclude."

"No, no! nobody admires a man for being in a passion, Mowbray," replied the Colonel; "or for endeavouring to save the life that his passion endangers. It is a bad story—a bad story. I wish the General would, just as my friend Miss Macalpine says, 'let byganes be byganes.' Let us talk no more about it."

"I think it was much to your honour, Colonel," said Miss Macalpine ;-" one might

ken ye had a drap of the true bluid in your veins."

"I have remarked," said Lord Mowbray, "that there is something exceedingly congenial in Scotch blood with water."

"How, my Lord ?" said Miss Macalpine.

66

First, you know, there is a drop of the morning dew, or right good Farentosh, to which I have heard it reported all your country folks are particularly addicted; and then I myself saw an instance of a young lady (one too, who had never resided in the country of her ancestors), who, from a sort of instinctive love of water, took off her shoes and stockings, and very deliberately forded a rapid stream."

Lady Emily, who had once more relapsed into silent thoughtfulness, started at the latter part of Lord Mowbray's speech, and, involuntarily looking up, blushed deeply; while Lord Mowbray continued with affected gravity:"Now, I conceive that this very extraordinary proceeding could only arise from that instinctive love of water, which the torrents and perpetual rains, &c. abounding, I have heard, in Scotland, naturally enough produce; and this sup

position seems confirmed by the story of Colonel Do you not

Pennington's jumping into the sea. agree with me, Lady Emily ?”

66

She blushed yet more deeply, but could not help smiling with consciousness, as she replied, hurriedly, Really, my Lord, I do not know; I never was in Scotland; why do you refer to me on the subject ?"

66 Why, what is the matter, Emily ?" said the General; "one would imagine it was yourself whom Lord Mowbray had seen."

"And so it was, dear uncle," replied Emily, in confusion; "mine was that very pretty exploit."

"A

"It is not possible!" cried her sister. very pretty exploit, and a very pretty confession truly!"

"Yes," rejoined Lord Mowbray, with more earnestness of expression than was usual with him, "it is a very pretty confession; and if every body told their peccadillos with the same candour, one would be apt to fall in love with follies."

Lady Frances coldly desired to know the solution of the enigma; but as neither party seemed

disposed to reply, she turned from them, remarking with an expression that could not be misunderstood, "that she was now aware why Emily had taken to such strange habits lately."

Lady Emily looked at her sister, but did not trust herself to speak, for she felt her heart swell within her breast, while blushes suffused her cheeks, as she reflected on the unjust suspicions which her sister's words and manner had implied from the first. Lord Mowbray's allusion to the subject had given her pain, and perhaps too, though unconscious why she did so, she regretted that the sacredness of a secret hitherto preserved between them should thus have been violated.

There is a charm in the recognition of a secret but innocent intelligence, be the matter ever so trivial, which is indescribably sweet; but this pure feeling must not, can not, for a moment be confounded with that fever of vicious excitement, which exists under any circumstances of guilty intrigue: no, it is as different as light from darkness. It is the delicate consciousness of an interest apart from the rude realities of

life; the ethereal intercourse of minds finely tuned in unison.

In the present instance, Lady Emily had felt indebted to Lord Mowbray for his silence with respect to her girlish frolic; and though he often spoke of pretty feet and ankles as indispensable to beauty, still, though conscious that his remarks extended to herself, her individual feet and ankles had not been named; and her blushes, and a half smile that dimpled around her lips, whenever the subject was alluded to, had made known to him that she tacitly acknowledged the delicacy of his forbearance to its full extent. The spell, however, was now broken; the secret divulged; and Lady Emily's confusion was only equalled by Lady Frances's chagrin at the detection.

The circumstance affected Lord Mowbray differently: he did, indeed, regret the disclosure the moment it had passed his lips, and for the same reasons; but he had never seen Lady Emily to so much advantage. He looked at her, as she made her artless confession of the truth, with a kind of delighted interest, which he had never