for my daily food these hands should cater, content with roots and herbs

quired Flora, interrupting her brother in the midst of his tirade. "You cannot dig.”

"I could learn," was the reply.

"You! you! It would be amusing to see you with your sleeves tucked up, your hands covered with mould and scratched with briars and brambles-those delicate hands you are so proud of exhibiting. I should have some difficulty in recognising my fastidious brother, who piques himself on having all things in order; desiring soft couches and warm rooms, furnished in the most fashionable style;—a lodge in a wilderness would suit you vastly! Put on a forester's dress this evening, fancy the evergreens oaks, and the flowers beeches, or any other stately tree that you may prefer. It only requires a little imagination to make a lady seem a knight,' and there will be no difficulty in converting the pretty girls at Dunder House into dryads and sylphs of the forest. But I

shall enjoy the ball with all its plain reality; and as it is full time for me to think of dressing, I will leave you to get rid of your philosophy. We shall meet at the gay scene, for you will not be ready to go with us." So saying, Flora left the room, and Walter, stretched on a sofa, remained musing on the stupidity of fashionable parties.

The clock struck eleven, soon after the carriage rolled away with Flora Rayland and her mother. Another hour passed, and Walter made no attempt to relinquish his recumbent posture, and there most probably he would have lingered till too late for any party, had not a thundering rap absolutely raised him from the sofa, but only to fall on it with increased determination of not leaving it again that night, when, to his great annoyance, three young men in fancy dresses entered the room, exclaiming at him for not being prepared for the duke's festivity.

"I'm sorry you took all this trouble for me,"

said Walter; "but really I feel no inclination to leave my present comfortable quarters for such nonsense—a ball in the dog-days! Why I can scarcely breathe in this suite of rooms, which I have had the last two hours to myself; what would become of me in the immense crowd at Dunder House, with lamps, servants, supper, and everything disagreeable to increase the heat, which is even now suffocating, without taking the trouble to dance ourselves into a fever?"

"Well, don't talk yourself into a fever," said Lionel Delaval, laughing. "You are already quite red with the exertion; there can be no necessity for putting yourself in a ferment about the matter."

"Ferment! how is it possible to be otherwise when my blood is nearly at boiling heat. I almost anticipate a brain fever or an attack of hydrophobia."

"Nonsense," returned another of the party; "you have got a fit of the spleen, which the Duke's supper and the pretty girls there will

PENRUDDOCK.

soon drive away. So be quick, get ready, and we will soon disperse these dolefuls.”

No, no," returned Walter. "You are all

in high spirits. You will enjoy the amusement; but I-verily, as I told Flora just now, 'my spirit loathes such vanity.'"

"On my life," said Philip Deverel, "he is going to turn methodist; he has had a call; say, shall we throw off our trappings and listen to a discourse from the worthy and pious Mr. Walter Rayland?"

"Be serious, Deverel. I really am not well."

You are only suffering from the heat," said

Mr. Trevallian, another of the young men who had not yet spoken; "do not disappoint us

because

you are experiencing the general effect of the weather; only exert yourself, this lan

"This is all very fine; as if my absence would interfere either with your comfort or your enjoyment," returned Walter, in a peevish tone. "We have been companions so long," said

Delaval, "that we certainly have more pleasure when you join our society than when you are absent. We may say this without being accused of flattery.”

"Well, as you are all so civil, I suppose I must comply; but, in sober sadness, I wish you had forgotten me just now."

"But, as we have not, be grateful for our remembrance, and dress as quickly as possible." Walter Rayland submitted to the wishes of his companions, and they proceeded to Dunder House.

It is no uncommon event for persons who have been long anticipating some festivity, some day that is to be enjoyed at the time, and to be remembered as a bright and brilliant era, to be disappointed-disappointment is the lot of man from the time of Seged to the present day; and numbers, like the Ethiopian emperor, have mourned the presumption which led them to say, "this shall be a day of happiness;" but it is not so generally the case when their hopes and expectations are, like Walter Rayland's,