him, and being nearly blind, approached nearer his own estimate of his personal graces than any body else; respectful to his father; affectionate to his brothers and sisters; and civil to the whole world. He made the tour of the village that very morning, and it was on a visit to his old acquaintance the mistress of the shop, that he had the good luck to lose over again the heart which would otherwise have hung so heavily on his hands.

Peggy Norman, his new lady-love, was a little serving maiden, living at Captain Selby's, a family of some gentility in Aberleigh, and had the neatness of dress, and the general gentillesse of appearance belonging almost exclusively to the class of soubrettes. Pretty she could hardly be called; and yet there was much attraction in her trim girlish figure, so light and round and youthful, her thick curling brown hair, the dazzling red and white of her brilliant complexion, as brightly contrasted as the colours in an apple-blossom, the broad smile disclosing a set of white even teeth, to say nothing of a very pretty dimple, and the whole expression of her bright blue eyes, whose arch glance when suddenly thrown up, formed an excellent accompaniment to the broad dimpled smile, and harmonized well with the naiveté and espièglerie of her voice and manner. It was the most agreeable manner that could be conceived, very gentle, very respectful, and very gay. Mrs. Selby, pleased with her young liquid voice, her pretty accent, her constant simplicity and occasional acuteness, and exceedingly amused by the new form in which her own opinions and remarks were sometimes returned to her by her docile attendant, had encouraged her light-hearted prattle, so that without any touch of presumption or pert

ness, Peggy felt the security of pleasing, proper to a spoilt child, joined to a constitutional desire to please which spoilt children are seldom lucky enough to possess. She was a perfect little rosebud of fifteen, and all the more dangerous to Stephen Long because she was little, he having contracted a remarkable aversion to the entire race of giantesses.

The errand on which Peggy had been sent to the territories of Mrs. White, being of a nature to detain her a considerable time, she having been ordered to match unmatchable silk with unprocurable cotton, Stephen had ample opportunity for falling in love, and even for making love; and before the grand question was decided whether the yellow, the blue, or the brown balls, of which Mrs. White's stock was composed, made the nearest approach to her green pattern, a very promising flirtation had commenced, greatly promoted by the complaisant mistress of the shop, who invited both parties to drink tea with her on the succeeding evening.

They met accordingly, and the love-affair proceeded most prosperously. Stephen had the happiness to find in this new flame a degree of literary acquirement which stood in the most advantageous contrast to the positive duncicality of Sally North. Mrs. Selby being a literary lady, Peggy had heard the names of authors and the titles of books; she had even a personal acquaintance with the outside of periodical literature, knew the colours of magazines, the backs of reviews, and the shapes of newspapers; could tell at a glance the Edinburgh from the Quarterly, and the John Bull from the Literary Gazette; was familiar with the grim face on Blackwood, and knew at a touch the Old Monthly from

the New. Stephen was in raptures. In another respect too, they met on even terms. Peggy had recently accompanied her mistress to London, had spent a whole fortnight there, and was so charmed with the gaiety and hurley burley of that great noisy good-for-nothing pleasant place, always delightful to healthy and lively youth, that she could talk of nothing else, and had certainly brought back with her a slight feeling of contempt, (pity she was pleased to call it) for the less fortunate bumpkins who had never heard the sound of Bow Bell. True it is that in talking of London, Peggy and Stephen meant very different places,-Stephen spoke of his home, the city; Peggy of hers, the west end; and a few mistakes and cross-readings ensued, especially on Peggy's part, who took Oxford-street for Cheapside, and Westminster Abbey for St. Paul's. But all passed under the general denomination of Town." There is a river in London, and also, moreover, there is a river in Westminster, and there is salmons in both." And Peggy talked and listened and smiled; and Stephen went home and wrote a sonnet to "his mistress's eye-brow."

The next day (Sunday,) they met again after church, and took a walk together in the evening, in the course of which they discovered another subject common to both, that subject which those who like it at all find so delightful-the Theatre. Stephen, certainly the most literary of hosiers' apprentices, was especially enthusiastic on the drama, had twice appeared at a private theatre, and entertained a strong desire to embrace the stage as a profession as soon as he was out of his time. Now Peggy had herself been at three plays, and talked of them with some discretion; knew Come

dy from Opera, and Tragedy from Farce. But it was not a talker that Stephen required on this theme; a listener was what he wanted; and no one ever acted audience whilst he rehearsed the story of his two appearances in Romeo and Richard the Third, better than the little blue-eyed girl who hung on his arm so admiringly as they walked round Aberleigh Green. Nothing, he said, could exceed the applause with which his debut in Romeo had been greeted by a large audience of city 'prentices, and shopwomen, troubled only by the astounding height of a bouncing Juliet, half as tall again as himself, who quite spoilt, as he observed, the proportions of the play. Again they made the tour of the Green, and Peggy had half promised to study the part of Juliet, when a difference arose out of this very subject which put an abrupt end' to their courtship.

From his personal adventures Stephen wandered to a general critique on plays and actors, especially to a warm encomium on one great actor, who was as he said his model. Peggy (who had seen the tragedian in question in Othello) assented heartily to the panegyric, adding "that it was a great pity so clever a man should be black.'

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"Black!" ejaculated the astonished Stephen; "Black!!"

Yes," answered Peggy, "black; a blackamoor, a negro.'

"Blackamoor!! Negro!!!" re-echoed Stephen, more and more astounded. "Mr.

This singular mistake did actually happen to a country girl of my acquaintance. I do not venture to put the actor's name, -although surely it was a compliment in its way, not unlike that which Partridge paid to Garrick.

are.

black! Are you dreaming? He's as fair as you What do you mean? What can you mean?" "What I say;" returned Peggy. "Did not I see him with my own eyes, and was not he as black as a chimney-sweeper? and did not his wife and every body talk of his complexion all through the play? You need not stand there, Mr. Stephen, holding up your hands and eyes, and looking as if you thought me a fool. I am not such a dunce as Sally North. I have been to London, and been to the play, and what I have seen I believe for all your strange looks. He's as black as my master's great greyhound,"-continued Peggy, who had gradually talked herself into such a passion, that her cheeks generally like a cabbage-rose were of the colour of a red cabbage-" as black as your hat."

Stephen on his part was for the first time in his life dumbfounded; first at the singular mixture of ignorance and simplicity implied in the assertion and the reasons brought to support it; secondly at the impudence of the little country damsel who did not know Westminster Abbey from St. Paul's, and yet ventured to impugn his authority on such a point. "Let me tell you-" he began, when a little recovered from his consternation, "Let me tell you, child-"

"Child!" interrupted Peggy, touched on the very point of dignity; "child yourself! It is well known that I am sixteen all but eight months, and as for you, you'll look like a boy all the days of your life. You play Tragedy! Why you're hardly tall enough for Punch. Child indeed! And I almost sixteen! Never come near me again, Mr. Long, I have nothing to say to you-" and off marched Peggy; and poor Stephen twice re