He contrived to ask Willis that very evening.

"Oh, don't you know, sir? She had a young brother drowned, a long while ago, when she was sixteen or so. He went out fishing on the Sabbath, with another like him, and both were swamped. Wild young lads, both, as lads will be. But she, sweet maid, took it so to heart, that she never held up her head since; nor will, I think, at times, to her dying day."

"Humph! Was she fond of the other lad, then?"

"Sir," said Willis, "I don't think it's fair likenot decent, if you'll excuse an old sailor- to talk about young maids' affairs, that they would n't talk of themselves, perhaps not even to themselves. So I never asked any questions myself."

"And think it rude in me to ask any. Well, I believe you're right, good old gentleman that you are. What a nobleman you'd have made, if you had had the luck to have been born in that station of life!"

"I have found too much trouble, in doing my duty in my humble place, to wish to be in any higher one."

A

"So!" thought Tom to himself, "a girl's fancy : but it explains so much in the character, especially when the temperament is melancholic. However, to quote Solomon once more, live dog is better than a dead lion;' and I have not much to fear from a rival who has been washed out of this world ten years since. Heyday! Rival! quotha? Tom Thurnall, you are going to make a fool of yourself. You must go, sir! I warn you; you must flee, till you have recovered your senses."

There appeared next morning in Tom's shop a new phenomenon. A smart youth, dressed in what he considered to be the newest London fashion; but which was really that translation of last year's fashion which happened to be current in the windows of the Bodmin tailors. Tom knew him by sight and name-one Mr. Creed, a squireen like Trebooze, and an especial friend of Trebooze's, under whose tutelage he had learned to smoke cavendish assiduously from the age of fifteen, thereby improving neither his stature nor his digestion, his nerves, nor the intelligence of his countenance.

He entered with a lofty air, and paused awhile as he spoke.

"Is it possible," said Tom to himself, "that Trebooze has sent me a challenge? It would be too good fun. I'll wait and see." So he went on rolling pills.

"I say, sir, quoth the youth, who had determined, as an owner of land, to treat the doctor duly de haut en bas, and had a vague notion that a liberal use of the word "sir" would both help thereto, and be consonant with professional style of duel diplomacy, whereof he had read in novels.

Tom turned slowly, and then took a long look at him over the counter through half-shut eyelids, with chin upraised, as if he had been suddenly afflicted with short sight; and worked on meanwhile steadily at his pills.

"That is, I wish to speak to you, sirahem!"— went on Mr. Creed; being gradually but surely discomfited by Tom's steady gaze. "Don't trouble yourself, sir: I see your case in your face. A slight nervous affection will pass as the digestion improves. I will make you up

There appeared next morning in Tom's shop a new phenomenon. A smart youth, dressed in what he considered to be the newest London fashion; but which was really that translation of last year's fashion which happened to be current in the windows of the Bodmin tailors. Tom knew him by sight and name-one Mr. Creed, a squireen like Trebooze, and an especial friend of Trebooze's, under whose tutelage he had learned to smoke cavendish assiduously from the age of fifteen, thereby improving neither his stature nor his digestion, his nerves, nor the intelligence of his countenance.

He entered with a lofty air, and paused awhile as he spoke.

"Is it possible," said Tom to himself, "that Trebooze has sent me a challenge? It would be too good fun. I'll wait and see." So he went on

rolling pills.

"I say, sir, quoth the youth, who had determined, as an owner of land, to treat the doctor duly de haut en bas, and had a vague notion that a liberal use of the word "sir" would both help thereto, and be consonant with professional style of duel diplomacy, whereof he had read in novels.

Tom turned slowly, and then took a long look at him over the counter through half-shut eyelids, with chin upraised, as if he had been suddenly afflicted with short sight; and worked on meanwhile steadily at his pills.

"That is, I wish to speak to you, sirahem!"- went on Mr. Creed; being gradually but surely discomfited by Tom's steady gaze.

"Don't trouble yourself, sir: I see your case in your face. A slight nervous affection - will pass as the digestion improves. I will make you up

a set of pills for the night; but I should advise a little ammonia and valerian at once. May I mix it?"

"Sir! you mistake me, sir!"

"Not in the least; you have brought me a challenge from Mr. Trebooze."

"I have, sir!" said the youth, with a grand air, at once relieved by having the awful words said for him, and exalted by the dignity of his first, and perhaps last, employment in that line.

"Well, sir," said Tom, deliberately, "Mr. Trebooze does me a kindness for which I cannot sufficiently thank him, and you also, as his second. It is full six months since I fought, and I was getting hardly to know myself again."

"You will have to fight now, sir!" said the youth, trying to brazen off by his discourtesy increasing suspicion that he had "caught a Tartar." "Of course, of course. And course, too, I fight you afterwards."

"I-I, sir? I am Mr. Trebooze's friend, his second, sir. You do not seem to understand, sir!"

"Pardon me, young gentleman," said Tom, in a very quiet, determined voice: "it is I who have a right to tell you that you do not understand in such matters as these. I had fought my man, and more than one of them, while you were eating blackberries in a short jacket."

"What do you mean, sir?" quoth the youth, in fury; and began swearing a little.

"Simple fact. Are you not about twenty-three years old?"

"What is that to you, sir?"

"No business of mine, of course. You may be Vol. 10-R