year better off than I am. It's a long story, and I hope I may have a better opportunity of telling it (with a gracious bow) at Fanshawe Hall; but through that romantic mania I am minus the house in Fitzroy Square, the farm in Norfolk, and £6000 in the three per cents.' "But what is the cause of Miss Fanshawe's evident distress?' Oh, the same romantic folly. At St. Vincent's she chose to engage herself to young Arthur Willoughby, whose all depends on his taking a double-first.' His uncle, Sir Felix Willoughby (another romantic old Quixote, a great scholar and antiquary), has promised to make him his heir, and allow him at once £800 a year, if he takes a double-first class. The old man is, I believe, half cracked. If he is heir to Sir Felix, it's a noble match for Constance; if not, Constance cannot do worse. Now, I wanted her to make her promise of consent conditional. She, quite a Fanshawe -the colonel, poor dear man, over again vows, if failure and ruin are his portion, they shall be hers too; and she won't hear a word of reason her father never would before her; but kind Providence, I believe, has taken pity upon me. Arthur Willoughby, madly in love with her, has read himself almost frantic, and his examination has been going on through the last fortnight, which fortnight has almost destroyed Constance, and, indeed, her poor mother. Well, I think, entre nous, he has greatly overrated his own powers. I dare say he never had a chance, and he has not taken the necessary time, so eager is he to secure Constance, who has had a much better offer from Sir Geoffrey Bullion. Arthur, poor fellow, has written daily, and from his account, has done so badly in the schools, failed so completely, and made such a fool of himself at his examination, that instead of a 'double first,' he expects to be plucked. Will you believe it, that insane girl, that romantic child, that genuine chip of the old block- And so excuse the vulgarism-that thorough-bred Fanshawe that colonel over again-told me yesterday, that if he was plucked, she would marry him at once and go to Australia with him-she has £5000 of her own. she would, and I might break my heart, besides losing the interest of that money; I couldn't prevent it. But a kind Providence has interposed. On leaving the schools the last day of his vivá voce, he fell down in a fit. Constance and his brother Gerard were at the telegraph office, to send him a message of comfort in case of failure, when, lo! came a message to Gerard from some tutor, to summon him down directly. His brother dying!' Apoplexy, I presume, or heart, no matter which -no hope. My romantic child, as there was no train for an hour, rushes home to persuade me to go with her. Had the express been on the point of starting, she would have been off. She, eighteen, with Gerard, a young fellow in the Guards, just two and twenty! her character would have been ruined. Sir Geoffrey Bullion would have been off at once. Arthur Willoughby, of course, is dead by this time; and I should have been destroyed by my own child. Her little fortune does not even revert to me. You see the state of her mind by that of her dress, and if I say a word she bursts into tears. Gerard should not have told her the message; but people are so unfeeling!' Poor Gerard! his white cheeks and lips, his tearful eyes, and trembling frame, might have saved him from that accusation. And as with the father, so with the daughter, I am the sacrifice;' and the lady consoled herself with a globule the size of a minikin pin's head. I have no influence with her in all this agitation, she has refused to take one globule, or to see Dr. Vanhummbuggstein. Her father just the same, I never could persuade him, and yet my feelings are far more acute than theirs; only, through homoeopathy and Vanhummbuggstein, I am : enabled to keep them under and do my duty! But here we are. Now just look at Constance. I believe she is going mad.' I could not exactly see this, but of course did not say so. "The train was arrived-the nondescript in the great coat issued from the waitingroom, and shuffled into a corner, glancing angrily at Gerard, and even at the guard. We got into the carriage, and soon found ourselves all seated just as we were before this stoppage. How deeply now I felt for poor Constance Fanshawe and Gerard Willoughby. As we approached Oxford, the former seemed about to faint, and tears gushed from the eyes of the other. Mrs. Fanshawe settled her shawl, her ruffles, put up her travelling bottle, her pill-box, after taking another globule, and her bonbonnière, and got neatly ready to leave the train. "As soon as it stopped Gerard darted out. "What! is he going to leave us to shift |