lost themselves in a chain of " don't you recollects?" which called up all their bygone adventures. But we will do them the justice to say, that when they looked round, and saw their own fine river, the mighty evidences of wealth and defiance that rode so proudly on its surface, and the tokens of commerce and enterprise that were crowded upon its banks, they agreed that old Thames took a deal of beating, and was a sight not to be despised, after all. And so, likewise, thought a great many of their foreign fellow-passengers, who, clustering round the fore part of the vessel, and presenting all those eccentric varieties of caps and cloaks, which migratory continentalists love to indulge in, were uttering continuous expressions of admiration at the traffic of the river, and the "mouvement perpetuel” of the ships and steam-boats.

At last the packet came alongside the wharf; and, after much pulling and hauling, and many people being requested to stand out of the way, and more being thrust violently into side-cabins, and artfully-contrived kitchens and cupboards in the paddle-boxes, where they remained in great trepidation and compulsory confinement for an indefinite period, to say nothing of the anxiety of everybody to turn all the luggage topsy-turvy until their own effects were uppermost, and their acute mental agony at the chance of the custom-house officers seizing the bottle of brandy which they had brought from Boulogne with the cork out. After all this, the passengers were permitted to land between two rows of awe-inspiring men, who looked as suspiciously at everybody as if they were constructions of gloves, lace, Cognac, and jewellery, in the form of men and women. Mr. Ledbury walked ashore with two bottles of Eau de Cologne tucked into each of his boots, a packet of gloves in his hat, and Galignani's edition of Byron, very boldly carried under his arm; whilst Jack Johnson had so stuffed every available corner of his wardrobe with tobacco, that he looked like a locomotive pincushion, and, upon emergency, would have made an excellent "fender," to let down with a rope over the side of the boat, and keep her from any damage by concussion against the landing-place!

"There's a pretty girl, Leddy!" exclaimed Johnson, as they gained the shore, and looked up at the people who were upon the platform of the wharf. "I think she knows us."

"It's my sister!" cried Ledbury, immediately falling into a continuous convulsion of nods and smiles; "and there is the mater with her! Come along, Jack!-I do want to see them so much!"

And, hurrying up the inclined boards of the floating barge, which looked like the ribbed planks laid down for the horses in equestrian dramas, Mr. Ledbury pulled Jack Johnson after him, and soon reached the spot where his mother and sister stood, amidst a crowd of loiterers, who were shaking their handkerchiefs at the vessel, as if they were dusting it at a distance, or telegraphing to those of their friends who still remained on board.

"My mother-Mr. Johnson!" cried Ledbury, in breathless haste, as he introduced his friend. "Jack-my sister! How d' ye do?and how are they all? How's the governor? You got the letter, then, all right? I thought you would come down."

And here Mr. Ledbury kissed his mother, who apparently expected he would do so, by putting up her veil the minute she saw him land, and next he saluted his sister in the same manner; and,

then the two ladies bowed to Jack Johnson, and Jack bent his head, and inwardly agreed that he should not have minded kissing the old lady at all, she looked so kind; and was certain that he should even have been delighted to pay the same compliment to the young one. For, though he had been flirting sadly amongst the belles of Paris, he was not too obstinate to allow that the bright eyes, and clear rosy cheeks, and cherry-lips of our dear English girls, had in them something rather attractive than otherwise, even to travellers like himself.

"We are much indebted to you, sir," said Mrs. Ledbury, turning to Jack, "for the attention you have shown to Titus;" for such was Mr. Ledbury's Christian name, we believe the first time the reader has been put in possession of the fact. "I hope, now you are returned, that we shall see something of you at Islington."

"I will do myself the pleasure of calling, if not intruding," replied Jack, who would have made a magnificent bow, only he was afraid some of the tobacco would tumble out of his hat.

"You are not quite a stranger to us, Mr. Johnson," said Miss Ledbury. "We have heard so much of you and your achievements from my brother, that we almost know you intimately already!”

"I fear he has told you little to my credit," said Jack, smiling, and feeling as if he was blushing, which made him do so in earnest. "Oh! indeed," returned the young lady, "we are very happy to make your acquaintance. Your care of my brother will insure you a welcome."

Mr. Ledbury here informed his mother, that, as no other foreign boat had come in that day, there was a chance of getting their luggage through the custom-house that same afternoon, and that, therefore, he intended to wait. Whereupon Jack Johnson offered his services to procure a cab for the ladies; and, after a great deal of rushing about in the mud of Thames Street, and several narrow escapes from being crushed to death between walls and waggonwheels, he brought a chariot in triumph down to the wharf. Mrs. and Miss Ledbury then left, after many mutual courtesies and pleasant speeches, and charges to Titus to come up home directly his effects were cleared, and hopes that Jack Johnson would not be long before he came to see them.

As soon as they had departed, Jack turned to Ledbury, and, with a countenance beaming with enthusiasm, exclaimed,

"The happy moment has at length arrived, which I have so long anticipated!

"I am very rejoiced to hear it," replied Ledbury, "if it gives you any satisfaction. What is the cause of your joy?"

"It is four calendar months," answered Johnson, "since these lips have known the taste of half-and-half; but we are once more in England, the land of the brave and free, and the bar to my happiness has given place to the bar of the nearest tavern-away!"

Jack Johnson here assumed the tone and bearing of a melo-dramatic performer at a minor theatre in the last act, and, pointing with his fore-finger towards a retail establishment, in the attitude of those energetic gentlemen who figure in shop-windows, at one penny plain, and twopence coloured, he entered the shop, followed by Ledbury.

"Give me the goblet!" exclaimed Johnson, in the same theatrical

tone, as he saw the bar-maid was rather overdone by customers, at the same time seizing the pewter pot,-" give me the goblet! The man who would not assist a female in distress is unworthy the name of Briton!"

And, applying himself vigorously to the handle of the beer-engine, he filled a quart of the looked-for beverage, and then buried his features in its foaming head.

“Ah!” he added, after a long pull at the contents, as he stopped for mere want of breath, and passed the tankard to Ledbury, "vin ordinaire, at twelve sous a bottle, is very good; but if the French had cultivated hop-grounds, instead of vineyards, we should have had much more trouble in thrashing them at Waterloo! It would have come to the same thing in the end, but would have taken longer time, and stronger power, to accomplish."

Their luggage was cleared that afternoon, nothing particularly contraband attracting the attention of the custom-house officers. The only things they looked suspiciously at were six or seven pairs of new boots, which Jack Johnson had given a little boy at Boulogne half a franc to wear, one after another, and run about in the mud with all day, to make them look old. But Jack contrived, by dint of equal exhibitions of chaff and persuasion, to get them passed; and then, for the first time since they left England, the two friends parted, Mr. Ledbury flying to the bosom of his family at Islington in a patent cab, and Jack Johnson leaving his packages until he sent a man for them with a truck.

"It seems odd, old fellow," said Jack, as they shook hands, "to say good-b'ye, after having been so long together. However, Leddy, I shall come up and see you before the week is out. Who knows but we may have many more adventures yet; so keep your powder dry upon the strength of it."

CHAPTER XI.

A few particulars concerning Mr. Ledbury's family.

It was some little time before the domestic circle, of which Mr. Ledbury formed an arc, had quite recovered from the excitement consequent upon his return, or ceased to listen, with astonished eyes and ears, to his entertaining narratives of what he had witnessed abroad.

As he had given up his lodgings in North Street when he went to Paris, he was, for the present, located at Islington with his relatives, who were rather proud of his adventures, and looked upon him as a traveller of no ordinary enterprise. Indeed, on the first Sunday after his return, when the period arrived that he had looked forward to so eagerly, and he walked down High Street in the afternoon, dressed in a complete suit of Parisian clothes, he almost occasioned a dispute. The juvenile portion of his family were so anxious to secure his arm, that they came to a downright struggle, in their desire to show the natives of the district-most of whom, it is believed, being a domestic and unambitious people, look upon France with the same indefinite notions of its customs and position, as if it was Nova Scotia or the Panjab - how very intimate they

were, and upon what familiar terms they stood, with so celebrated a voyager.

Mr. Ledbury had the honour of being at the head of his brothers and sisters; Emma came next to him, in point of seniority; and then there were three or four miniature Ledburys, of various ages and sizes, who peopled the upper part of the house during the week, and were allowed on Sunday to dine in the parlour, and pledge their parents in doll's wine-glasses of fifteen-penny Cape,-provided always that the nurse furnished a creditable report of their behaviour in the tub on the previous evening, which was sometimes exceedingly reckless and uncontrollable.

Master Walter Ledbury, an urchin of five years old, was a perfect infantile revolutionist; a sad little boy, indeed, whom no domestic severity could intimidate. He had been known to make faces at the nurse, and tell her that she was too ugly for him to mind. And his perseverance in catching that most hapless of all tormented animals, the nursery kitten, was as remarkable as it was eventually successful,-only equalled by the rapidity with which he dressed it in the doll's night-gown, whilst Foster had gone down to the kitchen for some hot water; and then, with the assistance of his senior sister, Ellen, gave it several successive dips in the tin-bath, after the manner of the women they had seen at Margate. None of the dolls themselves ever escaped this ordeal, or retained their eyes, five minutes after he got hold of them; and his intense love of cleanliness induced him to wash all the toys he could lay his hands upon, until their colours were reduced to one general neutral tint. He filled up all the key-holes with the monkeys who held the apples from the Noah's Ark; and was never so happy as when he was trying to swim the cocks and hens belonging to the same establishment in his milk and water; or clandestinely giving the baby, Japhet and his wife, that the black paint might be sucked off their round hats, and the infant's upper lip ornamented with chocolate mustachios from their gaberdines.

Perhaps, if any one person in the family could manage the juvenile insurgents better than another, it was Emma Ledbury. In the event of a nursery émeute, she was always the peace-maker. And a sweet, gentle girl she was too,-as pretty as she was good, and as clever as she was pretty. She knew how to make all sorts of useful things, -not trashy, fiddle-faddle fancy-work, but really serviceable domestic contrivances. Not but that she could very readily have embroidered a Berlin-wool chair-cover, or made a perforated-card sticking-plaster case, if she had chosen to give her time to it; but she entertained a strange antediluvian opinion, that the same proportion of industry, differently applied, might produce results of ten times greater utility. And she could have made a cloak for herself, in the last and prettiest fashion, in less time than the young lady who had lent her the pattern would take to finish an orientallytinted Chinese cockatoo on an embossed fire-screen, or completed a set of nothing-holders for the mantelpiece,-all straws, card-board, and blue ribbon.

Emma Ledbury was now seventeen; but she possessed more good sense and information than many young ladies of seven-and-twenty, if, indeed, young ladies will allow that there is such an age. She had not one attribute in common with our friend, her brother Titus,

except his unvarying good-temper and kind-heartedness; nevertheless they agreed remarkably well, and he entertained the highest notion of everything she did or advised. Her features were interesting and expressive; and, although not regularly perfect, far more attractive in their ensemble than those of the inanimate dolls, to which the world so frequently assigns the epithet of "beautiful," -the originals of the lithographed divinities who stare, or languish at us, from the title-pages of songs in the windows of fancystationers. Her eyes were dark and intelligent, and her soft glossy hair was braided over her smooth forehead, neither papered into cork-screws, nor vulgarized into plaits.

Mr. Ledbury, senior, was the chief partner of a first-rate London house, the offices of which were situated in the centre of one of those intricate ramifications of bricks, mortar, and dirty windows, which are to be found in various corners of the city, and are approached by artful alleys and cleverly-concealed courts, known only to the taxcollectors, sweeps, and employés of the establishment. By dint of prudent economy, a few lucky speculations, and a very handsome share of the business, he had built up the edifice of his fortune bit by bit, and then perched himself comfortably on the top. But he still paid the same unwearied attention to the duties of his firm; more, however, now, from long habit, than any real necessity which existed for such close application. The identical omnibus-cad, who had ridden behind the vehicle ever since it first started, never shouted out "Now, sir!" as it drew up to the door. He knew Mr. Ledbury would be ready, or, if the conveyance was two minutes after its time, that he had walked on; and his return in the afternoon was so punctual, that the neighbours regarded him as an animated chronometer, by which they arranged their clocks and watches. He had never been out of England, and very rarely out of London. He thought the neighbourhood of the Bank the only spot where a person could breathe a pure, wholesome air; and looked upon the country as a useful place for growing vegetables, nursing children, and feeding sheep, in order that they might supply the unequalled chops, one of which he was in the habit of taking for lunch, direct from the gridiron, at a venerable sawdusted tavern, approached by a species of horizontal chimney, which perforated the lower part of one of the houses in a bustling thoroughfare.

A few days after our hero's return, he was one evening, as usual, giving a long account of what he had witnessed, and much more of what he had not, to his mother and sister, who, having completed a long debate upon the practicability of cutting down one of Emma's dresses into a frock for little Ellen, were now making paper patterns of curious shapes and figures, which gave rise to much surmise in the mind of the spectator, as to what portion of the dress they could possibly be intended for. Mr. Ledbury, senior, was reading the city article in the paper, occasionally indulging in a parenthetical commentary of a most uncomplimentary nature upon France and the French,-regarding the latter as a species of educated apes, who did nothing but dance, eat nothing but frogs, manufactured nothing but sugar-plums, and whose general appearance resembled the foreigners he had seen in pantomimes and penny caricatures.

At length, Titus having come to the end of one adventure, and not being able, at the instant, to recollect or invent another, there