I might suspect her of being the daughter of a sheriff's officer!" He shuddered at the very thought.

"You see in what a horrible quarter of the town I am compelled to live!" remarked the beauty, in a plaintive tone, apparently guessing his thoughts.

"Do you live in Chancery Lane?" asked Jessamine.

"Not far from it. Is it not shocking-I, who love flowers and green fields, and the face of nature in all her beauty, to be compelled to pass my time in a dull, dark, smoky city like this!"

"A caged skylark," said Jessamine; "but where are you going?" he asked, as they turned into Carey Street.

"It is actually in this street that I live!" she replied.

"What number?" he inquired, anxiously. "No. 156," was the reply. "And your name—?”

"Styles-is it not an unpoetical one?"

Jessamine was staggered. He had promised himself the pleasure of passing a quiet evening with his pretty friend; of being thanked by her parents, and smiled on by herself-in short, of doing a great many things which a man who had to marry a woman of fortune, within a fortnight, should have dismissed from his thoughts altogether. But then Jessamine, like a good many others, had his good points; and could not keep from liking a pretty face, a gentle nature, and a sweet disposition, when he should have treated these things as so many "springes to catch woodcocks," and having nothing to do with the main point. Here were all his little plans scattered to the winds; he had been protecting, walking with, almost making love to, the daughter of the very attorney that was going to serve him with a writ, unless he were married to a fortune by that day fortnight!

They approached No. 156, and Jessamine held out his hand to bid farewell to his pretty companion.

"One more request; may I write to you?" he said.

Beauty blushed and hung her head; but she was romantic and loved mystery, and so she whispered "Yes," in a very faint tone.

"A thousand thanks! I rely entirely on both your promises," cried Jessamine, and lifting his hat, with a graceful bow, he took leave of the attorney's daughter, and hastened away from the detestable street.

That evening, pretty Amy sat a long while in her chamber before she could remember that it was time to go to bed. Her thoughts were all centred on one object-Mr. Arthur Jessamine. Never had she met any one so engaging, so noble-spirited, so handsome, so clever, and, above all, so mysterious. There was as much fascination in the last quality as in either of the others; for Amy knew the world only through the medium of poems and novels at least, the world she cared for. Her own domestic circle was limited to a busy father and a cross aunt. Her mother had died in her infancy; alas, for the child that is left to the mercy of the life-storm, without the aid of the only hand that can guide it safely through the tempest!

"It's perfectly ridiculous," muttered Arthur Jessamine to himself, as he rose next morning, and lazily made his toilet, "it's perfectly ridiculous to think that I should have tossed about my bed all night, with scarcely a moment of sound sleep; and all from thinking and dreaming incessantly of the pretty face of little Styles! Upon my soul, if I go on like this, I shall deserve to marry for love, and live on cold meat!"

It was a fact, nevertheless. Mr. Jessamine had been quite unable to drive pretty Amy's face out of his head. The more resolutely determined he was to wipe the remembrance of her from" the tablet of his memory," the more perversely those dark eyes and jetty ringlets fixed themselves before his mind's eye; the more incessantly the tones of that musical voice vibrated in his ears; the more entirely was he occupied with her picture in every way.

He sat at breakfast, and listlessly sipped his coffee and played with a French roll.

"Let me see- -about this woman of fortune. There's Jane Langley-bah! she's so lankyHow different from-hang it! why can't I think of something else? Stay-there's Mary Wormsley-she's rather pretty, and anything but lanky; a little too plump if anything, but certainly pretty; but then she's so stupid!

How charmingly that little girl did talk last evening! There's Julia Craven-rather a fine girl, not stupid either-but too masculine for my taste; and then her voice! I never heard so musical a voice in my life as-. Confound my folly! There's Kate Trevelyan-very rich, indeed! I think I must call on Kate this very day! she's not exactly handsome, and she stoops so awkwardly. There are very few girls that walk so gracefully as " he stopped abruptly, ran to a side-table, spread his desk, took up a scented sheet of note-paper, and began to write:

"Since we parted last evening, I have thought of nothing else than yourself. It is rash to avow so much, but I cannot help it. I almost begin to think you are a witch-no, you are too beautiful for that—a fairy, then— who is resolved on plaguing me to death, by fixing my eyes, my heart, my brain, on an object that never but I am afraid I am writing nonsense, or what you will call such. I am dying to see you again-may I? and when and where? The messenger who brings this is thoroughly trustworthy; he will arrange anything you please. Write-pray write at once to "ARTHUR."

Calling his faithful valet, he entrusted the letter to his care, giving him all necessary hints to enable him to convey the note, so that it might reach the hands of Amy, and no other.

"I wonder what will come of it!" he said, when he had fairly sent it off. "I never knew a fellow so determined on cutting the throat of his own schemes than I appear to be! Instead of calling on Kate Trevelyan, the heiress, I am scribbling nonsense to Amy Styles, the penniless; instead of marrying a fortune, and making the attorney pay a tailor's bill, I am making love to his daughter, and running the risk of marrying her! I can't help it if the devil has fairly taken me under his especial charge, he must do what he likes with me.”

Bob, the faithful valet, was a clever fellow. He went to Carey Street, and called at one of the public-houses there, where he got into a confidential conversation with the pot-boy, touching No. 156 and its inhabitants, after discovering that No. 156 had its beer from those premises.

"Daughter pretty?" asked Bob. But this was only a bit of curiosity, because Bob had nothing to do with that matter.

"Rayther!" was the reply; which, being accompanied with a wink, meant "very."

"Close watched, I suppose-no followers allowed?"

"Just so."

"A gent I know" (Bob would hardly have been forgiven if his master had heard him call him thus)" wants to get a letter to herdon't mind standing a sov."

"I'll do it," said the pot-boy, eagerly. "How do I know that ?" asked sly Bob. "Lor' bless you! I keep company with her maid, I do," replied the pot-boy.

Bob had caught the right man, and he was almost sorry; for he was nearly as fond of cunning as Mr. Dickens's honoured friends, the detectives. However, the matter was soon settled, the letter conveyed, an answer procured, and Bob returned triumphantly to his

master.

Two hours later, Mr. Arthur Jessamine and Miss Amy Styles were walking arm-in-arm through the least frequented avenues of Kensington Gardens.

"Do you know, Amy-may I call you Amy ?"

No answer but the slightest possible pressure of his arm, which he returned with a squeeze hard enough to have made her cry.

“Do you know, Amy, that I am a very poor man? I am afraid, too, that I am a very bad one."

"Oh no, oh no!" cried Amy, hastily, and then blushed at her own enthusiasm.

"You are a little angel!" exclaimed Jessamine, who, among all his fashionable friends, had never before met with a perfectly artless, naturally romantic, and yet thoroughly frankhearted girl. It was like rain falling in a desert-the desert was unused to it, but it drank it in not the less gratefully.

"You are an angel!" he said, "and I—it is no use to deceive you or myself, Amy; but I feel that even already I love you!”

How the little hand trembled on his arm as he uttered these words!

"And you, Amy-you?" and he looked into her eyes to know how she felt.

The eyes only glanced at him for an instant, but the checks were covered with roses, and the tongue uttered not a word. The eloquent silence told all.

Jessamine told her the whole history of his interview with her father, which startled her greatly.

"No-he would not consent," she said, after a pause.

"And would you—could you- ?" he began. "I am yours--what you ask, that shall I do," said Amy, in faint, but firm tones.

We should not think it fair to say how Arthur Jessamine responded to these words, but content ourselves with remarking that there was not a soul in sight of them, and bonnets are worn conveniently off the head now-a-days.

When Arthur Jessamine returned home that evening, and recalled the events of the day, he was rather at a loss to realise the idea that he had sworn to love and marry the penniless daughter of a hostile attorney-he who had only known her a day, and who accounted himself one of the most insensible and cold-blooded of mortals. And with such an opinion of himself he might have lived and died, but for an accident. Believe it, good reader, there are many of us whose hearts are like tinder, though the spark may never chance to fall that is to set them alight-and we think they are incapable of warmth!

We are not writing a novel, and so have neither the inclination nor the time to linger over our story. We must therefore pass over the next ten days, though they were crowded with incidents to the lovers, and hasten to conduct our readers to a little sea-side place on the Welsh coast, where Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Jessamine sat on the beach the morning after their wedding-day. They had not run away to Gretna Green-a clumsy contrivance of our ancestors, seldom resorted to by the present generation. Their banns had been duly published (or muttered) in the church of the parish in which Arthur resided. In that same church they had been privately married, at ten in the morning, and had started off in a hackcab to the railway station, with only a necessary supply of clothing for their luggage.

66

Amy, do you repent?"

"SIR,-Your daughter will have told you of the step we have taken. As a man of the world, you will, of course, condemn it; but if you will believe the oath of a libertine, I swear to you to do all in my power to prevent her from ever repenting it. We are both penniless; but I have hope and trust, such as I never felt before, that I shall yet live to place your daughter in the position she deserves to occupy. My aunt, I am sure, will assist us; and, while I do not now ask for your aid, I trust the day will come when you will not refuse us your favour.--I am, &c.,

"ARTHUR JESSAMINE."

Why? You don't understand; he was only to pay it in case I married within a fortnight a woman of fortune."

"Just so," said Amy, with a little knowing smile; "am not I one?"

"You are something ten thousand times better!" cried he, rapturously.

"Shall you love me less for having ten thousand pounds?" asked Amy. "What!"

"Look at that," said Amy, prcducing from her dressing-case a paper which the perfectly astounded Arthur perceived to be a bank receipt for £10,000 Consols, standing in the name of Amy Styles.