than ever down my back as I meditated on her. I made such awful blunders at whist that even good Mrs. Bonnington lost her temper with her fourteen shillings. Miss Prior would have played her hand out, and never made a fault, you may be sure. She retired at her accustomed hour. Mrs. Bonnington had her glass of negus, and withdrew too. Lovel keeping his eyes sternly on the Captain, that officer could only get a little sherry and seltzer, and went to bed sober. Lady Baker folded Lovel in her arms, a process to which my poor friend very humbly submitted. Everybody went to bed, and no tales were told of the morning's doings. There was a respite, and no execution could take place till to-morrow at any rate. Put on thy nightcap, Damocles, and slumber for to-night at least. Thy slumbers will not be cut short by the awful Chopper of Fate.

Perhaps you may ask what need had I to be alarmed? Nothing could happen to me. I was not going to lose a governess's place. Well, if I must tell the truth, I had not acted with entire candor in the matter of Bessy's appointment. In recommending her to Lovel and the late Mrs. L., I had answered for her probity, and so forth, with all my might. I had described the respectability of her family, her father's campaigns, her grandfather's (old Dr. Sargent's) celebrated sermons; and had enlarged with the utmost eloquence upon the learning and high character of her uncle, the Master of Boniface, and the deserved regard he bore his niece. But that part of Bessy's biography which related to the Academy I own I had not touched upon. A quoi bon? Would every gentleman or lady like to have everything told about him or her? I had kept the Academy dark then; and so had brave Dick Bedford the butler; and should that miscreant Captain reveal the secret, I knew there would be an awful commotion in the building. I should have to incur Lovel's not unjust reproaches for suppressio veri, and the anger of those two viragines, the grandmothers of Lovel's children. I was more afraid of the women than of him, though conscience whispered me that I had not acted quite rightly by my friend.

When, then, the bed-candles were lighted, and every one said good-night, "Oh! Captain Baker," say I, gayly, and putting on a confoundedly hypocritical grin, if you will come into my room, I will give you that book."

"What book?'" says Baker.

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The book we were talking of this morning."

Hang me, if I know what you mean," says he. And

luckily for me, Lovel, giving a shrug of disgust, and a goodnight to me, stalked out of the room, bed-candle in hand. No doubt, he thought his wretch of a brother-in-law did not well remember after dinner what he had done or said in the morning.

As I now had the Blacksheep to myself, I said calmly, “ You are quite right. There was no talk about a book at all, Captain Baker. But I wished to see you alone, and impress upon you my earnest wish that everything which occurred this morningmind, everything should be considered as strictly private, and should be confided to no person whatever — you understand? - to no person."

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Confound me," Baker breaks out, "if I understand what you mean by your books and your strictly private.' I shall speak what I choose

hang me!

"In that case, sir,” I said, "will you have the goodness to send a friend of yours to my friend Captain Fitzboodle? I must consider the matter as personal between ourselves. You insulted — and, as I find now, for the second time — a lady whose relations to me you know. You have given neither to her, nor to me, the apology to which we are both entitled. You refuse even to promise to be silent regarding a painful scene which was occasioned by your own brutal and cowardly behavior; and you must abide by the consequences, sir! you must abide by the consequences!' And I glared at him over my flat candlestick.

"Curse me! - and hang me! - and," &c. &c. &c. he says, "if I know what all this is about. What the dooce do you talk to me about books, and about silence, and apologies, and sending Captain Fitzboodle to me? I don't want to see Captain Fitzboodle great fat brute! I know him perfectly

well."

"Hush!" say I, "here's Bedford." In fact, Dick appeared at this juncture, to close the house and put the lamps out.

But Captain Clarence only spoke or screamed louder. "What do I care about who hears me? That fellow insulted me already to-day, and I'd have pitched his life out of him, only I was down, and I'm so confounded weak and nervous, and just out of my fever-and-and hang it all! what are you driving at, Mr. What's-your-name?" And the wretched little creature

cries almost as he speaks.

“Once for all, will you agree that the affair about which we spoke shall go no further?" I say, as stern as Draco.

"I shan't say anythin' about it. I wish you'd leave me alone, you fellows, and not come botherin'. I wish I could get

a glass of brandy-and-water up in my bedroom. I tell you I can't sleep without it," whimpers the wretch.

Sorry I laid hands on you, sir," says Bedford, sadly. "It wasn't worth the while. Go to bed, and I'll get you something warm."

"Will you, though? I couldn't sleep without it.

Do now

on the

- do now! and I won't say anythin'-I won't now honor of a gentleman, I won't. Good-night, Mr. What-d'-yecall." And Bedford leads the helot to his chamber.

"I've got him in bed; and I've given him a dose; and I put some laudanum in it. He ain't been out. He has not had much to-day," says Bedford, coming back to my room, with his face ominously pale.

• You have given him laudanum?" I ask.

Sawbones gave him some yesterday, - told me to give him a little forty drops," growls Bedford.

Then the gloomy major-domo puts a hand into each waistcoat pocket, and looks at me. "You want to fight for her, do you, sir? Calling out, and that sort of game? Phoo!"- and he laughs scornfully.

"The little miscreant is too despicable, I own," say I," and it's absurd for a peaceable fellow like me to talk about powder and shot at this time of day. But what could I do?"

"I say it's SHE ain't worth it," says Bedford, lifting up both clenched fists out of the waistcoat pockets.

"What do you mean, Dick?" I ask.

she's

"She's humbugging you, she's humbugging me, humbugging everybody," roars Dick. Look here, sir!" and out of one of the clenched fists he flings a paper down on the table.

"What is it?" I ask. It's her handwriting. I see the neat trim lines on the paper.

"It's not to you; nor yet to me," says Bedford.

"Then how dare you read it, sir?” I ask, ail of a tremble. 66 'It's to him. It's to Sawbones," hisses out Bedford. “Sawbones dropt it as he was getting into his gig; and I read it. I ain't going to make no bones about whether it's wrote to me or not. She tells him how you asked her to marry you. (Ha!) That's how I came to know it. And do you know what she calls you, and what he calls you, - that castor-hoil beast? And do you know what she says of you? That you hadn't pluck to stand by her to-day. There, it's all down under her hand and seal. You may read it, or not, if you like. And if poppy or mandragora will medicine you to sleep afterwards, I just

recommend you to take it. I shall go and get a drop out of the Captain's bottle-I shall."

And he leaves me, and the fatal paper on the table. Now, suppose you had been in my case would you, or would you not, have read the paper? Suppose there is some news bad news-about the woman you love, will you, or will you not, hear it? Was Othello a fogue because he let Iago speak to him? There was the paper. It lay there glimmering under the light, with all the house quiet.

CHAPTER VI.

CECILIA'S SUCCESSOR.

MONSIEUR ET HONORÉ LECTEUR! I see, as perfectly as if you were sitting opposite to me, the scorn depicted on your noble countenance when you read my confession that I, Charles Batchelor, Esquire, did burglariously enter the premises of Edward Drencher, Esquire, M.R.C.S.I. (phew! the odious pestle-grinder, I never could bear him!) and break open, and read a certain letter, his property. I may have been wrong, but I am candid. I tell my misdeeds; some fellows hold their tongues. Besides, my good man, consider the temptation, and the horrid insight into the paper which Bedford's report had already given me. Would you like to be told that the girl of your heart was playing fast and loose with it, had none of her own, or had given hers to another? I don't want to make a Mrs. Robin Gray of any woman, and merely because her mither presses her sair" to marry against her will. "If Miss Prior," thought I," prefers this lint-scraper to me, ought I to balk her? He is younger, and stronger, certainly, than myself. Some people may consider him handsome. (By the way, what a remarkable thing it is about many women, that, in affairs of the heart, they don't seem to care or understand whether a man is a gentleman or not.) It may be it is my superior fortune and social station which may induce Elizabeth to waver in her choice between me and my bleeding, bolusing, tooth-drawing rival. If so, and I am only taken from mercenary considerations, what a pretty chance of subsequent happiness do either of us stand! Take the vaccinator, girl, if thou preferrest him! I know what it is to be crossed in love already.

It's hard, but I can bear it! I ought to know, I must know, I will know what is in that paper!" So saying, as I pace round and round the table where the letter lies flickering white under the midnight taper, I stretch out my hand—I seize the paper -I—well, I own it-there- yes I took it, and I read it.

Or rather, I may say, I read that part of IT which the bleeder and blisterer had flung down. It was but a fragment of a letter- a fragment-oh! how bitter to swallow! A lump of Epsom salt could not have been more disgusting. It appeared (from Bedford's statement) that Esculapius, on getting into his gig, had allowed this scrap of paper to whisk out of his pocket- the rest he read, no doubt, under the eyes of the writer. Very likely during the perusal, he had taken and squeezed the false hand which wrote the lines. Very likely the first part of the precious document contained compliments to him - from the horrible context I judge so- compliments to that vendor of leeches and bandages, into whose heart I dare say I wished ten thousand lancets might be stuck, as I perused the FALSE ONE'S wheedling address to him! So ran the document. How well every word of it was engraven on my anguished heart! If page three, which I suppose was about the bit of the letter which I got, was as it was— what must pages one and two have been? The dreadful document began, then, thus:

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dear hair in the locket, which I shall ever wear for the sake of him who gave it". - (dear hair! indeed disgusting carrots! She should have been ashamed to call it "dear hair")" for the sake of him who gave it, and whose bad temper I shall pardon, because I think in spite of his faults h is a little fond of his poor Lizzie! Ah, Edward! how could you go on so the last time about poor Mr. B. ! Can you imagine that I can ever have more than a filial regard for the kind old gentleman?" (Il était question de moi, ma parole d'honneur. I was the kind old gentleman!) "I have known him since my childhood. He was intimate in our family in earlier and happier days; made our house his home; and, I must say, was most kind to all of us children. If he has vanities, you naughty boy, is he the only one of his sex who is vain? Can you fancy that such an old creature (an old muff, as you call him, you wicked, satirical man!) could ever make an impression on my heart? No, sir!" (Aha! So I was an old muff, was I?) "Though I don't wish to make you vain too, or that other people should laugh at you, as you do at poor dear Mr. B., I think, sır, you need but look in your glass to see that you