Littell's Living Age

my opportunities, sir," replied Frederick, Pooh, pooh, without settlements at all! speaking in the same tone. In fact," he Who spoke of marrying without settlements? added, a little more seriously," I have noth-In such a case as yours it would of course be ing to complain of, and in truth I believe I all the same thing if the deeds were signed might have it pretty well all my own way, before or after! The substance of them has were it not for that horridly slow coach, old been all agreed to." Slowcome. It is to Slowcome and Sligo, sir, that you should address yourself rather than to me, with a view to doing anything toward hastening the match."

"But would the old people at the Chase consent?" said Frederick, doubtfully.

"Pshaw! consent! Why, Fred, one would think you had the blood of seventy-seven in "Hasten old Slowcome! Humph! If your veins instead of that belonging to twenthe end of the world were fixed for twelve ty-seven! Of course the old folks would not o'clock this day week punctually, do you consent. Of course I should not consent! think Slowcome would move one jot the Ha, ha, ha! We did not always ask the faster, or omit a single repetition of execu- consent of papa and mamma in my day." tors,' and administrators' from his draft for counsel'? Not he. Now look here, my dear boy. I am sure you have the good sense to make the best use of any hint I may be able to give you for your guidance, without seeking to ask questions concerning matters which it is better not to trouble you with ". "Good heavens, father!"—

Frederick, looking down on his father from the other side of the high-backed writingtable, keenly and observantly, as he spoke the above words, did not seem to be at all stirred up by them to any of that hot-headed ardor which the old gentleman appeared to think would become his years. He grew, on the contrary, graver in manner, and felt very uneasy.

Gently, my dear boy, gently! do not agitate yourself. I trust there is no occa- But, suppose, sir," he answered, watchsion for you to feel any agitation. I hope-ing his father narrowly as he spoke,-" supI have every hope that all will go well. But pose my natural impatience prompted me to there are circumstances that make me think take such a step as you hint at, is it likely it my duty to tell you that if your marriage that Margaret would consent to it?" with Miss Lindisfarn could be hastened, it would be—ahem-prudent to do it ! ”

Nay, that is your affair,-altogether your affair, my dear boy. I suppose no girl "I've told you, sir, that we are only wait-ever consented to such a step unless she were ing for these troublesome settlements. Once for all, I believe, that as soon as the papers are signed, I may name the day as soon as I like."

“But as far as I see, it may be a month or more before that will be done!" said the old man, fidgeting uneasily in his chair.

"I have no doubt it will!" returned his son;

"but what in the world can I do to hurry the old fellow?"

pretty vigorously pressed to do so; but very many have consented."

Margaret has an uncommonly shrewd head of her own; she has abundance of sound common sense!" said Fred, musingly, and speaking more to himself than to his father.

"I am sure she has! Without it, she would not have been the girl for you, Fred. But what would you have? Girls are romantic-a thing represented to them in a poetical point of view, you know "

"But again, father, supposing that I could induce Margaret to consent to such a step, would it be, looking at it from our point of view, a safe one?"

"Nothing; nothing would hurry him! But sometimes," and the old man looked furtively up into his son's face as the latter stood lounging with his arms crossed on the high back of the writing-table at which his father was sitting, "in the days when I was young, an impatient and ardent lover was not "I do not think there would be much danalways content to wait for the tedious for-ger," replied his father, speaking in a demalities of the lawyers." cided and business-like tone, very different

"What! marry without any settlements at from that in which he had been hithertʊ all!" exclaimed the "ardent lover," staring talking. "I am very much convinced," he at his father in open-eyed astonishment, as if continued, "that there would be no danger he suspected that he was losing his senses. at all. The old squire, even if he has ever

trophe. Mr. Fishbourne said (to his partner only) that it was quite providential that they had succeeded in weathering the storm as long as they had. But he did not appear to have any comfortable reliance on the stability of the intention of Providence with regard to the old Silverton Bank.

had a thought of anything else than divid-and-go matter with the old established firm ing the property equally between the two to get on from day to day without a catasgirls, would never budge from his word given to me. Trust me, the old squire's word is as good as any settlement old Slowcome can make, any day. Certainly, I do not mean to say," continued the old banker, "that the step in question would be one which I should counsel under ordinary circumstances. There would be, no doubt, a certain possibility of risk; and it is always unwise to run any risk, if it can be avoided. But I have already told you, my dear Fred, that there are reasons, there are reasons. Very possibly, in all probability, there may be nothing in them; but if you can steal a march on old Slowcome, and do the job, at once, why, I should advise you to do it. We old birds should be very angry, of course,' added the old gentleman, with an attempt at a smile, which the evident anxiety in his face rendered a sorry failure; "but we should be very forgiving."

Well, sir, as you tell me I had better not, I will not attempt to question you; and I will think very seriously of all you have said, and be guided by it, as far as is practicable."

"And look here, Fred," said his father, opening the drawer of his writing-table, and taking from it an unsealed envelope, "I have not calculated at all accurately the cost of posting from here to Gretna. It is a long journey; but I think that there is enough there to do it, if you should happen to need such a thing. Four horses make the guineas as well as the milestones fly. But there would not be much chance of your being pursued. There would only be a bit of a lecture and a blessing, and a laugh against Slowcome, when you came back all tied as fast as Vulcan could tie you."

“Thank you, sir," said Fred, pocketing the bank-notes. 66 Depend upon it, I will put your advice to the best profit I can."

So the younger man went out, very far from easy in his mind, leaving the senior with his hands deeply plunged in his pockets, and his head fallen forward on his breast, in deep and anxious thought.

Frederick's favorite time for paying his visits to the house in the Close was the hour of the afternoon service in the cathedral. The spring had not yet ripened into summer; but the season was sufficiently advanced to render the sheltered walk in the canon's garden at that quiet hour extremely pleasant. The doctor was sure to be absent at the cathedral. Lady Sempronia, if she went out at all, did so at that time. If, as was more frequently the case, she did not go out, she was reposing on the sofa in the cheerless drawing-room after the wearing fatigue of doing nothing all day, and recruiting her strength for that great hour of trial and effort,-the dinner-hour.

Frederick was at that time safe, therefore, to find his Margaret at liberty to give herself up entirely to him; and the gathering gloom of evening only served to make the shaded terrace-walk under the old wall all the more delightful.

It was just about the usual hour of his visit, when he parted from his father in the bank parlor; and he walked straight across the Close to the senior canon's house, bent on at once feeling his way toward the execution of the project his father had shadowed forth to him. It was not that he went to the work with a very light heart, or a very good will. But he was profoundly impressed with the conviction that his father would not have spoken in the manner he had, if there had not been very grave reasons for doing so. And with regard to the prudence of the step, as far as concerned Miss Margaret's fortune, he quite agreed with his father in feeling that the old squire's word upon the subject was as safe as any bond.

So he knocked at the door, and asked the servant, who had long since come to understand that the gentleman had the right to make such an inquiry, if Miss Margaret was in the garden.

In truth, he had but too much reason for anxiety. A most unlucky combination of unfortunate circumstances falling together had, in fact, placed the bank in very critical "Yes, sir; you will find her on the terrace, circumstances. And it was quite a touch- I have no doubt," said the old man, whose

time for translation to a vergership had almost come, smiling knowingly at the visitor. "Then, if you will let me out, Parsons, I will go into the garden through the study, so as not to disturb Lady Sempronia, if she is at home."

So Falconer passed into the quiet garden, and found Margaret on the terrace-walk as usual. She was at the farther end of it when he came within sight of her, and was reading a note, or paper of some sort, which she thrust away immediately on catching sight of him.

Of course Margaret had been for some days past prepared for this event, and aware that it would not be deferred much longer. Nevertheless, it gave her a shock to learn that the dreaded moment had absolutely arrived. Would Kate reveal the facts immediately, was the question! Kate urgently desired now that she was free to do so. That her sister, in the note, to return at once to the Chase, that they might talk the matter over together. And Margaret considered that this was a favorable sign. If Kate intended to tell at all hazards, she would rather It was natural enough that she should put have done so, thought Margaret, making the away anything that she was reading when error that all such Margarets make in specushe came forward to meet him. Neverthe-lating on the conduct of such Kates, withless, there was a something about the man-out saying anything about it to her. ner of the action that caused her fond Fred At all events, Margaret determined to obey to take observant note of it. Perhaps it her sister's summons and go up to the Chase was in the nature of the intercourse between the next morning. She had sent back an these two young hearts, so specially fitted answer by young Dick Wyvill, who had for each other, as the old squire had observed, brought in Kate's note on the pony of all that every smallest movement or indication work, to the effect that she would be ready which escaped either of them should be, with immediately after breakfast, if Kate could the unfailing quickness of instinct, seized on, prevail on Mr. Mat to come in for her in the examined, noted, and interpreted by the gig. If not, the carriage must be sent. other! She had sent this reply, and was conning over again Kate's note, to see if she could extract from it any evidence of the writer's mood of mind respecting the all-important question, when she saw her lover emerging from the thick clump of Portugal laurels which filled the corner of the garden at the end of the terrace nearest to the house, and hastened forward to meet him.

The simple fact as to the paper which Margaret, with such conscious but unnecessary haste, concealed at the approach of her lover, is that it was a note from Kate, which had been given to her about a quarter of an hour previously, communicating to her the tidings the former had received from Mrs. Pendleton, of the convalescence and recovery of her inmate.

THE long-expected English edition of the poetical works of the late W. M. Praed, M. P., will be published by Messrs. Moxon & Co., in two volumes, the first week in July. Most important additions to the scope of the work have been made by the production, by Lady Young, the poet's sister, of a series of poems written in early life, and for the most part unpublished. Mr. Praed's nephew, Sir George Young, Bart., is engaged in a careful and exhaustive revision of the text; while the memoir of the poet will be from the pen of the Rev. Derwent Coleridge, rector of Hanwell. A dedication to the memory of the late Mrs. Praed will do justice to the life-long exertions this lady made in collecting and editing the works of her

husband.

COOL AS A CUCUMBER.-Coleridge has remarked that stammering is sometimes the cause of a pun. Some one was mentioning in Lamb's presence the cold-heartedness of the Duke of rushing up to the embrace of her son, whom she Cumberland, in restraining the duchess from had not seen for a considerable time, and insisting on her receiving him in state. "How horribly cold it was!" said the narrator. "Yes," "but you replied Lamb, in his stuttering way; know he is the Duke of Cu-cum-ber-land."

HARD-HEADED.--A Limerick banker, remarkable for his sagacity, had an iron leg, "which," said Curran, "is the softest part about him."