arrives I shall return to my old tower; and the man and the ruin will crumble away together."

"Tush, uncle! I must work hard and get money; and then we will repair the old tower, and buy back the old estate. My father shall sell the red brick house; we will fit him up a library in the keep; and we will all live united, in peace, and in state, as grand as our ancestors before us."

While I thus spoke, my uncle's eyes were fixed upon a corner of the street, where a figure, half in shade half in moonlight, stood motionless. "Ah!" said I following his eye, "I have observed that man, two or three times, pass up and down the street on the other side of the way, and turn his head towards our window.

Our

guests were with us then, and my father in full discourse, or I should have-"

Before I could finish the sentence, my uncle, stifling an exclamation, broke away, hurried out of the room, stumped down the stairs, and was in the street, while I was yet rooted to the spot with surprise. I remained at the window, and my eye rested on the figure. I saw the Captain, with his bare head and his gray hair, cross the street; the figure started, turned the corner, and fled.

Then I followed my uncle, and arrived in time to save him from falling: he leant his head on my breast, and I heard him murmur,"It is he-it is he! He has watched us! he repents!"

The next day Lady Ellinor called; but to my great disappointment without Fanny.

Whether or not some joy at the incident of the previous night had served to make my uncle more youthful than usual, I know not, but he looked to me ten years younger when Lady Ellinor entered. How carefully the buttoned up coat was brushed! how new and glossy was the black stock! The poor Captain was restored to his pride, and mighty proud he looked! With a glow on his cheek, and a fire in his eye; his head thrown back, and his whole air composed, severe, Mavortian and majestic, as if awaiting the charge of the French cuirassiers at the head of his detachment.

My father, on the contrary, was as usual (till dinner, when he always dressed punctiliously, out of respect to his Kitty) in his easy morning gown and slippers; and nothing but a certain compression in his lips which had lasted all the morning, evinced his anticipation of the visit, or the emotion it caused him.

Lady Ellinor behaved beautifully. She could not conceal a certain nervous trepidation, when she first took the hand my father extended; and, in touching rebuke of the Captain's stately bow, she held out to him the hand left disengaged, with a look which brought Roland at once to her side. It was a desertion of his colours to

which nothing, short of Ney's shameful conduct at Napoleon's return from Elba, affords a parallel in history. Then, without waiting for introduction, and before a word indeed was said, Lady Ellinor came to my mother so cordially, so caressingly-she threw into her smile, voice, manner, such winning sweetness, that I, intimately learned in my poor mother's simple loving heart, wondered how she refrained from throwing her arms round Lady Ellinor's neck, and kissing her outright. It must have been a great conquest over herself not to do it! My turn came next; and talking to me, and about me, soon set all parties at their ease-at least apparently.

What was said I cannot remember: I do not think one of us could. But an hour slipped away, and there was no gap in the conversation.

With curious interest, and a survey I strove to make impartial, I compared Lady Ellinor with my mother. And I comprehended the fascination the high-born lady must, in their earlier youth, have exercised over both brothers, so dissimilar to each other. For charm was the characteristic of Lady Ellinor-a charm indefinable. It was not the mere grace of refined breeding, though that went a great way; it was a charm that seemed to spring from natural sympathy. Whomsoever she addressed, that person appeared for the moment to engage all

“What, my dear?" asked my father kindly.

Accept an offer Lady Ellinor has made me, on the part of Mr Trevanion. He wants a secretary. He is kind enough to excuse my inexperience, and declares I shall do very well, and can soon get into his ways. Lady Ellinor says (I continued with dignity) that it will be a great opening in public life for me; and at all events, my dear father, I shall see much of the world, and learn what I really think will be more useful to me than any thing they will teach me at college."

My mother looked anxiously at my father. "It will indeed be a great thing for Sisty," said she timidly; and then taking courage she added— "And that is just the sort of life he is formed for "

"Hem!" said my uncle.

My father rubbed his spectacles thoughtfully, and replied, after a long pause,

66 You may be right, Kitty: I don't think Pisistratus is meant for study; action will suit him better, But what does this office lead to?

"Public employment, sir," said I boldly; "the service of my country." "If that be the case," quoth Roland, "I have not a word to say. But I should have thought that for a lad of spirit, a descendant of the old De Caxtons, the army would have-"

"The army!" exclaimed my mother, clasping her hands, and looking involuntarily at my uncle's cork leg.

"The army!" repeated my father peevishly. "Bless my soul, Roland, you seem to think man is made for nothing else but to be shot at! You would not like the army, Pisistratus ?" "Why, sir, not if it pained you and my dear mother; otherwise, indeed-" "Papa!" said my father interrupting me. "This all comes of your giving the boy that ambitious, uncomfortable name, Mrs Caxton; what could a Pisistratus be but the plague of one's life? That idea of serving his country is Pisistratus ipsissimus all over. If ever I have another son, (Dii meliora!) he has only got to be called Eratostratus, and then he will be burning down St Paul's; which I believe was, by the way, first made out of the stones of the temple of

Diana! Of the two, certainly, you had better serve your country with a goose-quill than by poking a bayonet into the ribs of some unfortunate Indian;-I don't think there are any other people whom the service of one's country makes it necessary to kill just at present,-eh, Roland ?"

It is a very fine field, India," said my uncle, sententiously. "It is the nursery of captains."

"Is it? Those plants take up a great deal of ground, then, that might be. more profitably cultivated!. And, indeed, considering that the tallest captains in the world will be ultimately set into a box not above seven feet at the longest, it is astonishing what a quantity of room that species of arbor mortis takes in the growing! However, Pisistratus, to return to your request, I will think it over, and talk to Trevanion."

"Or rather to Lady Ellinor," said I imprudently: my mother slightly shivered, and took her hand from mine. I felt cut to the heart by the slip of my own tongue.

"That, I think, your mother could do best," said my father, drily, "if she wants to be quite convinced that somebody will see that your shirts are aired. For I suppose they mean you. to lodge at Trevanion's."

Oh, no!" cried my mother. "He might as well go to college then. I thought he was to stay with us; only go in the morning, but, of course, sleep here."

"If I know any thing of Trevanion," said my father, "his secretary will be expected to do without sleep. Poor boy, you don't know what it is you desire. And yet, at your age, I —" my father stopped short. "No!" he renewed abruptly, after a long silence, and as if soliloquising. "No, man is never wrong while he lives for others. The philosopher who contemplates from the rock, is a less noble image than the sailor who struggles with the storm. Why should there be two of us? And could he be an alter ego, even if I wished it? impossible!" My father turned on his chair, and, laying the left leg on the right knee, said smilingly, as he bent down to look me full in the face; "But, Pisistratus, will you promise me always to wear the saffron bag?"

I now make a long stride in my narrative. I am domesticated with the Trevanions. A very short conversation with the statesman sufficed to decide my father; and the pith of it lay in this single sentence uttered by Trevanion-"I promise you one thinghe shall never be idle !".

Looking back, I am convinced that my father was right, and that he understood my character, and the temptations to which I was most prone, when he consented to let me resign college and enter thus prematurely on the world of men. I was naturally so joyous, that I should have made college life a holiday, and then, in repentance, worked myself into a phthisis.

And my father, too, was right, that, though I could study, I was not meant for a student.

After all, the thing was an experiment. I had time to spare: if the experiment failed, a year's delay would not necessarily be a year's loss.

I am ensconced, then, at Mr Trevanion's. I have been there some months-it is late in the winter-parliament and the season have commenced. I work hard-Heaven knows, harder than I should have worked at college. Take a day for a sample.

Trevanion gets up at eight o'clock, and in all weathers rides an hour before breakfast; at nine he takes that meal in his wife's dressing-room; at half-past nine he comes into his study. By that time he expects to find done by his secretary the work I am about to describe.

On coming home, or rather before going to bed, which is usually after three o'clock, it is Mr Trevanion's habit to leave on the table of the said study a list of directions for the secretary. The following, which I take at random from many I have preserved, may show their multifarious nature:

1. Look out in the Reports-Committee House of Lords for the last seven years all that is said about the growth of flax-mark the passages for me. 2. Do. do-"Irish Emigration." 3. Hunt out second volume of Kames's History of Man, passage containing "Reid's Logio"-don't know where the

book is!

4. How does the line beginning "Lumina conjurent, inter" something, end? Is it in Gray? See!

5. Fracastorius writes-" Quantum hoc infecit vitium, quot adiverit urbes." Query, Ought it not to be-infecerit instead of infecit?-if you don't know, write to father.

6. Write the four letters in full from the notes I leave, i.e. about the Ecclesiastical Courts.

7. Look out Population Returns-strike average of last five years (between mortality and births), in Devonshire and Lancashire.

8. Answer these six begging-letters; No"-civilly.

9. The other six, to constituents-" that I have no interest with Government." 10. See, if you have time, whether any of the new books on the round table are not trash.

11. I want to know ALL about Indian corn!

12. Longinus says something, somewhere, in regret for uncongenial pursuits, (public life, I suppose)-what is it? N.B, Longinus is not in my London Catalogue, but is here I know-I think in a box in the lumber-room. 13. Set right the calculation I leave on the poor-rates. I have made a blunder somewhere. &c. &c.

Certainly my father knew Mr Trevanion; he never expected a secretary to sleep! To have all the above ready by half-past nine, I get up by candle-light. At half-past nine I am still hunting for Longinus, when Mr Trevanion comes in with a bundle of letters.

Answers to half the said letters fall to my share. Directions verbal-in a species of short-hand talk. While I write, Mr Trevanion reads the newspapers-examines what I have done

makes notes therefrom, some for Parliament, some for conversation, some for correspondence-skims over the Parliamentary papers of the morning-and jots down directions for extracting, abridging, and comparing them, with others, perhaps twenty years old. At eleven he walks down to a Committee of the House of Commons-leaving me plenty to do-till half-past three, when he returns. At four, Fanny puts her head into the room-and I lose mine. Four

days in the week Mr Trevanion then disappears for the rest of the day,-dines at Bellamy's or a clubexpects me at the House at eight o'clock, in case he thinks of something, wants a fact or a quotation. He then releases me-generally with a fresh list of instructions. But I have my holidays, nevertheless. On Wednesdays and Saturdays Mr TreIvanion gives dinners, and I meet the most eminent men of the day-on both sides. For Trevanion is on both sides himself or on no side at all, which comes to the same thing. On Tuesdays, Lady Ellinor gives me a ticket for the Opera, and I get there at least in time for the ballet. I have already invitations enough to balls and soirées, for I am regarded as an only son of great expectations. I am treated as becomes a Caxton who has the right, if he pleases, to put a De before his name. I have grown very smart. I have taken a passion for dress-natural to eighteen. I like

every thing I do, and every one about me. I am over head and ears in love with Fanny Trevanion-who breaks my heart, nevertheless; for she flirts with two peers, a life-guardsman, three old members of parliament, Sir Sedley Beaudesert, one ambassador, and all his attachés, and, positively, (the audacious minx!) with a bishop, in full wig and apron, who, people say, means to marry again.

Pisistratus has lost colour and flesh. His mother says he is very much improved,—that he takes to be the natural effect produced by Stultz and varnished boots. Uncle Jack says he is "fined down."

His father looks at him, and writes to Trevanion,—

"Dear T.-I refused a salary for my son. Give him a horse, and two hours a day to ride it. Yours, A. C."

The next day I am master of a pretty bay mare, and riding by the side of Fanny Trevanion. Alas! alas!

I have not mentioned my Uncle Roland. He is gone abroad-to fetch his daughter. He has stayed longer than was expected. Does he seek his son still-there as here? My father has finished the first portion of his work, in two great volumes. Uncle Jack, who for some time has been looking melancholy, and who now seldom stirs out, except on Sundays, (on which days we all meet at my father's and dine together)- Uncle Jack, I say, has undertaken to sell it.

"Don't be over sanguine, " says Uncle Jack, as he locks up the MS. in two red boxes with a slit in the lids, which belonged to one of the defunct companies. "Don't be over sanguine as to the price. These publishers never venture much on a first experiment. They must be talked even into looking at the book."

"Oh!" said my father, "if they will publish it at all, and at their own risk, I should not stand out for any other terms. Nothing great,' said Dryden, 'ever came from a venal pen!"" "An uncommonly foolish observation of Dryden's," returned Uncle Jack: "he ought to have known better."

"So he did," said I, "for he used his pen to fill his pockets-poor man!"

"But the pen was not venal, master Anachronism," said my father. "A baker is not to be called venal if he sells his loaves-he is venal if he sells himself: Dryden only sold his loaves."

"And we must sell yours," said Uncle Jack emphatically. "A thousand pounds a volume will be about the mark, eh?"

"A thousand pounds a volume ?" cried my father. "Gibbon, I fancy, did not receive more."

"Very likely; Gibbon had not an Uncle Jack to look after his interests," said Mr Tibbets, laughing, and rubbing those smooth hands of his. "No! two thousand pounds the two volumes !— a sacrifice, but still I recommend moderation."

"I should be happy, indeed, if the book brought in any thing," said my father, evidently fascinated-"for that young gentleman is rather expensive; and you, my dear Jack;-perhaps half the sum may be of use to you!"

"To me! my dear brother," cried Uncle Jack-"to me! why, when my new speculation has succeeded, I shall be a millionnaire!"